A senior Taliban official defends that “it is necessary” to include women in the Government of Afghanistan

The deputy foreign minister highlights that “they must be involved in all areas of life”

July 8. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Deputy Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, Mohamad Abbas Stanekzai, has argued that “it is necessary” to include women in government departments in the country, amid criticism against the Taliban for the exclusion and reduction of women’s rights and freedoms in the country.

“Men and women must have a role in the construction of the country. Not only men work. We need women in our work environment,” she indicated during the inauguration of a trade exhibition.

Thus, he has highlighted that women make up half of the Afghan population and has defended that “they must be involved in all areas of life, including the economy, politics and the reconstruction of the country”, according to the television network Afghan Tolo TV.

Abbas Stanekzai, however, has stressed that women “are not abandoned” in the country and has emphasized that the authorities established by the Taliban will guarantee their rights, in line with the ‘sharia’.

“We cannot ignore women in society,” he argued, while calling on academics who have fled the country after the group’s seizure of power in August 2021 to return to Afghanistan.

“Return to Afghanistan. We guarantee that no one will say anything. Lend a hand. We are open to (the return of) academic figures who are abroad and are considered opponents,” the Afghan Deputy Foreign Minister has settled.

Abbas Stanekzai’s words have come after several days of meetings by thousands of Afghan clerics to address the political and social situation and support the Taliban mandate, meetings that ended without a decision to reopen the classrooms.

The Taliban authorities have faced criticism for the closure of educational centers and the exclusion of female students from them, amid a battery of discriminatory measures against women that distance them from their jobs and govern aspects of their daily lives. .