Afghanistan: Quarterly Meeting
Tomorrow morning (12 December), the Security Council will convene for an open briefing on Afghanistan. The expected briefers are Special Representative of the Secretary General and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Roza Otunbayeva, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher, Ambassador Andrés Montalvo Sosa (Ecuador) in his capacity as Chair of the 1988 Afghanistan Sanctions Committee, and a representative of civil society. Closed consultations are scheduled to follow the open briefing.
The US, the Council’s President in December and a signatory to the Shared Commitments on Women, Peace and Security (WPS), has indicated that the meeting will focus on the situation of women and girls and has encouraged Council members to keep this in mind when preparing their statements. Current signatories to the Shared Commitments—Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, the Republic of Korea (ROK), Sierra Leone, Slovenia, Switzerland, the UK, and the US—are expected to hold a joint stakeout prior to the meeting, together with incoming signatories Denmark, Greece, and Panama.
The Taliban’s recent directive banning women and girls from attending classes at private medical institutions is expected to be discussed during tomorrow’s meeting. In a 5 December statement, Spokesperson for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Ravina Shamdasani described the measure as “profoundly discriminatory”, saying that it “removes the only remaining path for women and girls towards higher education and will decimate the already inadequate supply of female midwives, nurses, and doctors”. Shamdasani also noted that the directive will further limit access to health care for women and girls, given that the Taliban has also banned male medical staff from treating women unless a male relative is present. Council members are likely to convey similar messages in their statements tomorrow and may call on the Taliban to reverse this directive and their other policies and practices that violate the rights of women and girls. Members might also seek more information from Otunbayeva about the possible effects of the directive and the extent to which the Taliban has begun implementing it.
Council members are also expected to refer to the independent assessment on Afghanistan requested by resolution 2679 of 16 March 2023 and the related Doha process at tomorrow’s meeting. (The independent assessment report proposed an architecture for engagement with the Taliban, among other matters. For more information, see our 27 November 2023, 8 December 2023, and 28 December 2023 What’s in Blue stories.) While several members are likely to express support for the recommendations of the independent assessment, some may argue that the Taliban’s actions in recent months have directly undermined the process outlined in those recommendations. In this context, members might note that the Secretary-General’s latest report on Afghanistan (S/2024/876), which was circulated to Council members on 6 December, says that the ratification of the “Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice” has made building a constructive engagement framework between the Taliban and the international community more difficult. Members are also likely to be particularly interested in hearing from Otunbayeva regarding the working groups on the private sector and counter-narcotics that participants in the third Doha meeting, held on 30 June and 1 July, agreed to establish. The inaugural meeting of the working group on counter-narcotics was convened by UNAMA on 28 November.
Fletcher will deliver his briefing pursuant to resolution 2615 of 22 December 2021, which established a humanitarian exception to the 1988 Afghanistan sanctions regime and requested that the Emergency Relief Coordinator brief the Council on the delivery of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan every six months, including on any available information regarding payments to or diversion of funds by designated individuals. According to the Secretary-General’s report, an estimated 23.7 million Afghans continue to face a severe humanitarian crisis characterised by food insecurity, malnutrition, widespread displacement, and contamination from explosive ordnance. The report says that humanitarian access in Afghanistan remains challenging and notes that funding shortfalls, restrictions on women aid workers, and operational impediments are having a negative effect on the ongoing provision of essential services. Fletcher may elaborate on some of these points during tomorrow’s meeting.
The overall human rights situation in Afghanistan is expected to be discussed tomorrow. In a 10 December statement marking International Human Rights Day, UNAMA referred to the ongoing erosion of human rights protections in Afghanistan and urged the Taliban to “embrace global human rights obligations as a key to the protection and prosperity of current and future generations”. Otunbayeva may reiterate these points in her briefing. Several Council members are also likely to condemn reports of ongoing human rights violations in the country and may call on the Taliban to cease perpetrating such violations.
The importance of pursuing accountability for human rights violations, including through international courts, may be highlighted by some members. On 28 November, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Luxembourg, Mexico, and Spain sent a referral to the Office of the International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor regarding the situation in Afghanistan. In a 29 November statement, ICC Prosecutor Karim Asad Ahmad Khan said that the referral requested that his office consider the crimes committed against women and girls since the Taliban seized power in 2021 and noted that his office’s ongoing investigation concerning the situation in Afghanistan already encompasses the alleged crimes described in the referral. Khan also said that his office has made “considerable progress” in investigating allegations of gender persecution and expressed confidence that he would soon be in a position to announce the results of that investigation.
The security situation in Afghanistan is another likely topic of discussion. According to the Secretary-General’s report, the UN recorded 2,510 security-related incident reports between 1 August and 31 October, a 39.6 percent increase compared to the same period in 2023. On 11 December, the Taliban’s Acting Minister for Refugees Khalil Rahman Haqqani was killed by a suicide bombing in Kabul. While Taliban officials blamed the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant-Khorasan (ISIL-K) for the attack, the group did not immediately claim responsibility. Members may refer to these developments and might express concern regarding the possible deterioration of the overall security situation in the country.
The threat posed by terrorism in Afghanistan is likely to be raised during tomorrow’s meeting. The Secretary-General’s report notes that ISIL-K carried out six attacks between 1 August and 31 October, compared to four attacks during the previous three months. Since 31 October, ISIL-K has also reportedly claimed responsibility for a 21 November attack that killed at least ten members of the Sufi community in the Baghlan province. In discussing this issue, Council members are likely to call on the Taliban to adhere to the commitments they have made regarding the prevention of terrorism.
Otunbayeva may refer to the challenges facing journalists and media workers in Afghanistan during her briefing. A joint report prepared by UNAMA and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) and published on 26 November says that the Taliban have continued to create an “extremely challenging operating environment for media”, including by subjecting journalists and media workers to intimidation, arbitrary arrest and detention, ill-treatment, court proceedings, and imprisonment.
