UNITED NATIONS, Oct 30 (APP):Decrying a sharp spike in cross-border violence, Pakistan has warned that it cannot “sit idle” in the face of an externally backed terrorist onslaught originating from Afghanistan, where the human rights situation continues to deteriorate.
Speaking in the UN General Assembly’s Third Committee during an interactive dialogue with the Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, Pakistani delegate Muhammad Jawad Ajmal said his country has the right to respond in self-defense against militant networks.
In this regard, he linked the ruling Taliban regime to the unimpeded regional operations of banned terrorist proxies, including the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) and its Majeed Brigade, signaling a dangerous escalation in the tensions along the Pak-Afghan border.
Ajmal, a counsellor in the Pakistan Mission to the UN, was commenting on the Bennet’s report which accused the Taliban of committing systematic violations against women and children in Afghanistan.
Highlighting Taliban’s continued backtracking on their international obligations, the Pakistani delegate said that women and girls are denied fundamental freedoms and basic dignity, with discriminatory and abusive practices that contravene Islamic laws, traditions, and tenets of Muslim faith.
Over the years, Ajmal said Pakistan welcomed millions of Afghan refugees who pose a serious threat to the country’s security, pointing out that it continues to facilitate vulnerable Afghans despite limitations.
In this regard, he urged the international community to step up and shoulder its responsibility.
During the last three years alone, he said, more than 4,700 innocent Pakistanis have lost their lives to terrorism emanating from Afghanistan.
“On 16th March, Pakistan precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure, including drones and ammunition storage facilities used by the TTP to target innocent Pakistani civilians,” the Pakistani delegate said.
“We will respond in self-defense, as and when needed and in accordance with international law against whosoever attempts to harm our citizens and our national security,” Jawad Ajmal added.
At the outset, Richard Bennett, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan. warned that the Taliban have shown no willingness to reverse any of their systematic human rights violations.
Instead, he reported the authorities have intensified repression through new edicts.
Recalling the words of a girl from Balkh, he said: “Three words have come to define our lives: fear, tears and despair.”
More than 2.6 million girls have been denied secondary education since 2021, approximately 9 million children face severe hunger and 3.7 million children under five suffer acute malnutrition, it was pointed out.
Child labour is increasing, with some families selling or giving away their children, Bennett warned. Meanwhile, boys remaining in school face curricula increasingly shaped by Taliban ideology. “The regime is teaching a generation of boys that the exclusion of their sisters and mothers is normal,” he noted.
New judicial rules sanction violence against women and girls, with punishment only when broken bones or visible bruises result, while a separate decree makes marital separation harder and allows a girl’s silence to count as consent to marriage, the special rapporteur said.
Warning against normalizing relations with the Taliban without independently verified human rights improvements, Bennett urged States to sustain humanitarian assistance and support accountability, including efforts to codify gender apartheid as a crime.
“Abandoning them would hand the Taliban legitimacy in exchange for nothing, and Afghan women would pay first,” he declared.
Source: APP (Associated Press of Pakistan)
