Deputy U.N. chief pushes women’s rights during visit to Taliban heartland

U.N. Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed expressed alarm to Taliban officials in Kandahar over violations of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the United Nations said on Friday after she made a rare visit to the Taliban’s southern heartland.
Mohammed finished a four-day visit to Afghanistan on Friday, also meeting Taliban officials in the capital Kabul after the administration banned most female aid workers and stopped women and girls from attending high school and university.
“My message was very clear: while we recognize the important exemptions made, these restrictions present Afghan women and girls with a future that confines them in their own homes, violating their rights and depriving the communities of their services,” Mohammed said in a statement.
In Kandahar – home to the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader who has the final say on major decisions – Mohammed met with Deputy Governor Maulvi Hayatullah Mubarak.
He told her that the Taliban administration wanted a strong relationship with the world, the removal of sanctions on its leaders and to be able to send an ambassador to the U.N., said the Kandahar information office.