Afghanistan forced returns must stop, UN rights chief says

UN human rights chief Volker Turk urged countries on Wednesday to stop forced returns to Afghanistan, saying the country's rights and humanitarian crisis was getting worse while international attention had faded.

Turk said millions of people in Afghanistan were living in poverty, basic rights were deteriorating and hundreds of thousands of people were being returned against their will from countries where they had sought refuge.

The UN refugee agency said more than 400,000 Afghans have been forcibly returned so far this year, mainly from Iran and Pakistan, but also from several European Union states.

Turk said foreign aid had declined and called on countries to renew pressure on Afghanistan's Taliban government to end restrictions on women and girls.

Under the Taliban, women are banned from public places including parks and from most jobs, while education for girls beyond age 12 is outlawed. The UN says about 2.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Turk also warned that new decrees this year were making it harder for women to separate from spouses and, in his words, implicitly authorising child marriage and violence against women and children. He said restrictions on women and girls amounted to “gender apartheid”.

The UN rights office said Taliban authorities had arrested men and women over alleged violations of restrictions including dress code, beard length and playing or listening to music. It said at least 449 men and women were subjected to corporal punishment in the first half of this year.

The office also cited violations against religious minorities, former government officials and former members of Afghanistan's defence and security forces.