The U.N. Security Council on Tuesday decried increasing restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan, urging the country's Taliban rulers to reverse them immediately. The Security Council “reiterated its deep concern of the suspension of schools beyond the sixth grade, and its call for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan,” it said in a press statement. Read more: 4 NGOs suspend work in Afghanistan after Taliban bar women U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Türk pointed to “terrible consequences” of a decision to bar women from working for non-governmental organizations. Last week, Taliban authorities stopped university education for women, sparking international outrage and demonstrations in Afghan cities. On Saturday, they announced the exclusion of women from NGO work, a move that already has prompted four major international aid agencies to suspend operations in Afghanistan. “No country can develop — indeed survive — socially and economically with half its population excluded," Türk said in a statement issued in Geneva. "These unfathomable restrictions placed on women and girls will not only increase the suffering of all Afghans but, I fear, pose a risk beyond Afghanistan’s borders.” “This latest decree by the de facto authorities will have terrible consequences for women and for all Afghan people,” Türk said, adding that banning women from working for NGOs will deprive them and their families of incomes and of the right to “contribute positively” to the country's development. Read more: Taliban bar women from university education in Afghanistan “The ban will significantly impair, if not destroy, the capacity of these NGOs to deliver the essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend," he said. Despite initially promising a more moderate rule respecting rights for women and minorities when they took power last year, the Taliban have widely implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. They have banned girls from middle school and high school, restricted women from most employment and ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public. Women are also banned from parks and gyms. “Women and girls cannot be denied their inherent rights," Türk said. “Attempts by the de facto authorities to relegate them to silence and invisibility will not succeed — it will merely harm all Afghans, compound their suffering, and impede the country’s development.”

Pakistan on Tuesday reaffirmed its commitment for the protection and promotion of women's rights, both nationally and internationally, on the occasion of the International Women's Day. "Pakistan pays tribute to the women around the world whose resilience, sacrifices and efforts have made it possible for humankind to progress and build a better future for all. No society or nation can succeed and achieve sustainable development without realization of gender equality and women empowerment," the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. Read: Saluting women's power on Women's Day Women in Pakistan have contributed immensely to national development and progress, the statement said, adding that the country's constitution and legal framework provide guarantees for equal participation by women in all spheres of life, including social, economic and political sectors. "On this day, we reaffirm our solemn commitment to continue promoting women empowerment and gender equality across the board," said the ministry.

Begum Rokeya Day is being observed marking the 139th birth and 87th death anniversary of Begum Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain, the pioneer for women's rights in the subcontinent. The Women and Children Affairs Ministry, Begum Rokeya Foundation and various socio-cultural and political organisations have chalked out elaborate programmes to mark the day. Read: Five noted women receive Rokeya Padak-2021 President Abdul Hamid and Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina issued separate messages paying rich tributes to Begum Rokeya. Begum Rokeya Shakhawat Hossain was born on December 9 in 1880 at Pairaband village in Rangpur. She also passed away on December 9 in 1932. Begum Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain was a Bengali feminist thinker, writer, educationist, social activist, advocate of women's rights, and widely regarded as the pioneer of women's education in the Indian subcontinent during the time of the British rule. Five eminent women were honoured with the prestigious Begum Rokeya Padak-2021 on Thursday for their outstanding contributions to women empowerment and social development. The recipients areProf Hasina Zakaria Bela, Archana Biswas, Shamsunnahar Rahman Paran (posthumous), Dr Zinat Huda and Dr Saria Sultana. Read:Move forward breaking barriers: Hasina tells women Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina joined the award-giving ceremony and celebration of Begum Rokeya Day-2021, virtually from her official residence Ganobhaban. On behalf of the Prime Minister, State Minister for Women and Children Affairs Fazilatun Nessa Indira handed over the medals and certificates to the recipients and their relatives. The Women and Children Affairs Ministry arranged the programme at the city’s Osmani Smriti Auditorium.

Afghanistan’s new Taliban rulers set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” in the building that once housed the Women’s Affairs Ministry, escorting out World Bank staffers on Saturday as part of the forced move. It was the latest troubling sign that the Taliban are restricting women’s rights as they settle into government, just a month since they overran the capital of Kabul. During their previous rule of Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban had denied girls and women the right to education and barred them from public life. Separately, three explosions targeted Taliban vehicles in the eastern provincial capital of Jalalabad on Saturday, killing three people and wounding 20, witnesses said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamic State group’s militants, headquartered in the area, are enemies of the Taliban. The Taliban are facing major economic and security problems as they attempt to govern, and a growing challenge by IS militants would further stretch their resources. In Kabul, a new sign was up outside the women’s affairs ministry, announcing it was now the “Ministry for Preaching and Guidance and the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.” Read: Fearful US residents in Afghanistan hiding out from Taliban Staff of the World Bank’s $100 million Women’s Economic Empowerment and Rural Development Program, which was run out of the Women’s Affairs Ministry, were escorted off the grounds, said program member Sharif Akhtar, who was among those being removed. Mabouba Suraj, who heads the Afghan Women’s Network, said she was astounded by the flurry of orders released by the Taliban-run government restricting women and girls. On Friday, the Taliban-run education ministry asked boys from grades six to 12 back to school, starting on Saturday, along with their male teachers. There was no mention of girls in those grades returning to school. Previously, the Taliban’s minister of higher education minister, had said girls would be given equal access to education, albeit in gender-segregated settings. “It is becoming really, really troublesome. ... Is this the stage where the girls are going to be forgotten?” Suraj said. “I know they don’t believe in giving explanations, but explanations are very important.” Suraj speculated that the contradictory statements perhaps reflect divisions within the Taliban as they seek to consolidate their power, with the more pragmatic within the movement losing out to hard-liners among them, at least for now. Statements from the Taliban leadership often reflect a willingness to engage with the world, talk of open public spaces for women and girls and protecting Afghanistan’s minorities. But orders to its rank and file on the ground are contradictory. Instead of what was promised, restrictions, particularly on women, have been implemented. Suraj, an Afghan American who returned to Afghanistan in 2003 to promote women’s rights and education, said many of her fellow activists have left the country. Read: Friction among Taliban pragmatists, hard-liners intensifies She said she stayed in an effort to engage with the Taliban and find a middle ground, but until now has not been able to get the hard-line Islamic group’s leadership to meet with activists who have remained in the country, to talk with women about the way forward. “We have to talk. We have to find a middle ground,” she said. UNESCO’s Director General Audrey Azoulay on Saturday added her voice to the growing concern over the Taliban’s limitations on girls after only boys were told to go back to school. “Should this ban be maintained, it would constitute an important violation of the fundamental right to education for girls and women,” Azoulay said in a statement upon her arrival in New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. A former advisor to the women’s ministry under the previous Afghan government sent a video message to The Associated Press from her home in Kabul, slamming the Taliban’s move to close the ministry. It is “the right of women to work, learn and participate in politics on the national and international stage,” said Sara Seerat. ”Unfortunately, in the current Taliban Islamic Emirate government there is no space in the Cabinet. By closing the women’s ministry it shows they have no plans in the future to give women their rights or a chance to serve in the government and participate in other affairs.” Earlier this month the Taliban announced an all-male exclusively Taliban Cabinet but said it was an interim setup, offering some hope that a future government would be more inclusive as several of their leaders had promised. Also on Saturday, an international flight by Pakistan’s national carrier left Kabul’s airport with 322 passengers on board and a flight by Iran’s Mahan Air departed with 187 passengers on board, an airport official said. Read: Women in Afghanistan: Taliban Government to Ban Women's Sports in Afghanistan The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to speak to the media, said the two international flights departed in the morning. The identities and nationalities of those on board were not immediately known. The flights were the latest to depart Kabul in the past week as technical teams from Qatar and Turkey have worked to get the airport up to standard for international commercial aircraft. A Qatar Airways flight on Friday took more Americans out of Afghanistan, the third such airlift by the Mideast carrier since the Taliban takeover and the frantic U.S. troop pullout from the country last month. The State Department said Saturday that there were 28 U.S. citizens and seven permanent residents on board the flight from Kabul, and thanked Qatari authorities for their help. Also Friday night, a flight by Kam Air, Afghanistan’s largest private carrier, took off from Mazar-e-Sharif, the capital of northern Balkh province, with 350 passengers on board, according to two employees there. The flight was headed to Dubai, said the two, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. They said the plane carried foreigners but it was not clear if and how many Americans were on board.

The Taliban vowed Tuesday to respect women’s rights, forgive those who fought them and ensure Afghanistan does not become a haven for terrorists as part of a publicity blitz aimed at reassuring world powers and a fearful population. Following a lightning offensive across Afghanistan that saw many cities fall to the insurgents without a fight, the Taliban have sought to portray themselves as more moderate than when they imposed a strict form of Islamic rule in the late 1990s. But many Afghans remain skeptical — and thousands have raced to the airport, desperate to flee the country. Older generations remember the Taliban’s previous rule, when they largely confined women to their homes, banned television and music, and held public executions. A U.S.-led invasion drove them from power months after the 9/11 attacks, which al-Qaida had orchestrated from Afghanistan while being sheltered by the Taliban. READ: Taliban announces ‘amnesty,’ urges women to join government Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s longtime spokesman, emerged from the shadows Tuesday in his first-ever public appearance to address those concerns at a news conference. He promised the Taliban would honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law, without elaborating. The Taliban have encouraged women to return to work and have allowed girls to return to school, handing out Islamic headscarves at the door. A female anchorwoman interviewed a Taliban official Monday in a TV studio. The treatment of women varies widely across the Muslim world and sometimes even within the same country, with rural areas tending to be far more conservative. Some Muslim countries, including neighboring Pakistan, have had female prime ministers, while ultraconservative Saudi Arabia only recently allowed women to drive. Mujahid also said the Taliban would not allow Afghanistan to be used as a base for attacking other countries, as it was in the years before 9/11. That assurance was part of a 2020 peace deal reached between the Taliban and the Trump administration that paved the way for the American withdrawal. The Pentagon said U.S. commanders are communicating with the Taliban as they work to evacuate thousands of people through Kabul’s international airport. It said the Taliban have taken no hostile actions there. Mujahid reiterated that the Taliban have offered full amnesty to Afghans who worked for the U.S. and the Western-backed government, saying “nobody will go to their doors to ask why they helped.” He said private media should “remain independent” but that journalists “should not work against national values.” Kabul, the capital, has remained calm as the Taliban patrol its streets. But many remain fearful after prisons and armories emptied out during the insurgents’ sweep across the country. Kabul residents say groups of armed men have been going door-to-door seeking out individuals who worked with the ousted government and security forces, but it was unclear if the gunmen were Taliban or criminals posing as militants. Mujahid blamed the security breakdown on the former government, saying the Taliban only entered Kabul in order to restore law and order after the police melted away. A broadcaster in Afghanistan said she was hiding at a relative’s house, too frightened to return home much less go to work. She said she and other women do not believe the Taliban have changed their ways. She spoke on condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety. A group of women wearing Islamic headscarves demonstrated briefly in Kabul, holding signs demanding the Taliban not “eliminate women” from public life. Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the United Nations’ high commissioner for human rights, noted both the Taliban’s vows and the fears of everyday Afghans. “Such promises will need to be honored, and for the time being — again understandably, given past history — these declarations have been greeted with some skepticism,” he said. READ: 7 killed in Kabul airport chaos as Taliban patrols capital Whatever their true intentions, the Taliban have an interest in projecting moderation to prevent the international community from isolating their government, as it did in the 1990s. The European Union said it was suspending development assistance to Afghanistan until the political situation is more clear but that it would consider boosting humanitarian aid. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the Taliban must respect U.N. Security Council resolutions and human rights to earn access to some 1.2 billion euros ($1.4 billion) in development funds earmarked through 2024. Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab said Britain might provide up to 10% more humanitarian aid. He said the aid budget would be reconfigured for development and humanitarian purposes and that the Taliban would not get any money previously earmarked for security. Evacuation flights resumed after being suspended on Monday, when thousands of people rushed the airport. In shocking scenes captured on video, some clung to a plane as it took off and then fell to their deaths. At least seven people died in the airport chaos, U.S. officials said. On Tuesday, the Taliban entered the civilian half of the airport, firing into the air to drive out around 500 people there, said an Afghan official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to brief journalists. The Taliban appeared to be trying to control the crowd rather than prevent people from leaving. A video circulating online showed the Taliban supervising the orderly departure of dozens of foreigners. The U.S. Embassy in Kabul, now operating from the military side of the airport, urged Americans to register online for evacuation but not to come to the airport before being contacted. The German Foreign Ministry said a first German military transport plane landed in Kabul but took off with only seven people on board due to the chaos. Another left later with 125 people. U.S. President Joe Biden has defended his decision to end America’s longest war, blaming the rapid Taliban takeover on Afghanistan’s Western-backed government and security forces. NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg echoed that assessment, while saying the alliance must investigate the flaws in its efforts to train the Afghan military. Talks continued Tuesday between the Taliban and several Afghan politicians, including former President Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, who once headed the country’s negotiating council. The Taliban have said they want to form an “inclusive, Islamic government.” The talks focused on how a Taliban-dominated government would operate given the changes in Afghanistan over the last 20 years, rather than just dividing up ministries, officials with knowledge of the negotiations said on condition of anonymity to discuss the closed-door talks. A top Taliban leader, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, arrived in Kandahar on Tuesday night from Qatar, potentially signaling a deal is close at hand. The vice president of the ousted government, meanwhile, tweeted that he was the country’s “legitimate” caretaker president. Amrullah Saleh said that under the constitution, he should be in charge because President Ashraf Ghani has fled the country.

The United Arab Emirates is at the forefront of the countries advocating women's rights at the global level through a series of initiatives and programmes aimed at supporting and empowering women in many societies and countries.

Australia has expressed eagerness to support programmes aiming to establish women's rights (especially underprivileged) and child protection in Bangladesh.

Ivanka Trump lauded Sunday a handful of Mideast countries, including close U.S. allies Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, for embarking on "significant reforms" to advance women's rights, while speaking at a gathering of women entrepreneurs and regional leaders in Dubai.