"Something died inside me on August 15, 2021, or at least that's how I felt: my hopes crushed, my education irrelevant (...). But I realized that there were still lots of women fighting inside the country. And I chose to be one of them." These are the words of Nasima [her name was changed to protect her security], a women's rights activist in Afghanistan. After the Taliban seized power, she decided to stay in her native country to defend women's rights, risking her own life in the process.

"All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights." This is the first article of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. All human beings: that means all girls and all women too. And yet, on their own soil, Afghan women are deprived of their fundamental rights and robbed of their humanity. In recent months, the latest decree on the "prevention of vice and the promotion of virtue" has placed the final nail in the coffin of women's freedoms.  From now on, they are forbidden to leave their homes alone, to have their voices heard in public, or to recite a poem. What is their crime? Being a woman. What is their mistake? Existing.

Girls and women no longer have the right to sing; they already no longer had the entire freedom of learning or of teaching. Afghanistan is now the sole country to ban education for girls over the age of 12 and for women. According to UNESCO data, 80% of Afghan women of school age, i.e. 2.5 million – are deprived of their right to education. Young Afghan girls cannot be deprived of a universal and fundamental right!

So let's not delude ourselves about the archaic and theocratic nature of the Taliban regime, which denies the humanity and dignity of women. This is a crime, a systematic persecution based on gender, that outrages all consciences, especially ours as female politicians and women presidents of assemblies.

But even if Afghan women have become shadows in their own land, their voices, today stifled, must continue to be heard and resonate in our parliaments. For three years now, our debates have echoed their struggle. This was the case at the first Women Speakers' Summit, which brought together 24 of us in Paris, on March 6 and 7: Together we reaffirmed our commitment to Afghan women's right to education, and strongly reiterated that our parliaments will always be at the forefront of women's rights.

And it is also this imperative of humanity and equality that the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the "Parliament of Parliaments," has consistently upheld, which demanded the repeal of the ‘vice and virtue law' as soon as it was enacted. We, in turn, urge the Taliban regime to repeal this decree and all other discriminatory laws immediately.

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