UNITED NATIONS(The COW News Digital) The United Nations has warned that attempts to restore diplomatic relations with Afghanistan’s Taliban regime would effectively legitimize oppression and deepen the country’s ongoing human rights and humanitarian crisis.
According to international media reports, Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, told the General Assembly that efforts to normalize ties with the Taliban risk giving moral and political cover to a regime that continues to systematically violate basic freedoms.
Bennett urged UN member states to adopt a principled and equality-based approach that ensures the protection of Afghan women’s and girls’ rights. “Engagement that ignores ongoing abuses will only empower those responsible for them,” he cautioned.
He described Afghanistan’s human rights situation as deteriorating with no signs of improvement, pointing to increasing cases of gender-based discrimination, corporal punishment, enforced disappearances, and attacks on former government officials, despite the Taliban’s declared “general amnesty.”
The UN envoy highlighted that restrictions on media and civil society have become increasingly severe, while ethnic and religious minorities, especially the Hazara community, face forced displacement and targeted discrimination.
Bennett emphasized that none of the Taliban’s decrees curtailing women’s rights have been repealed. “Many Afghan women remain deprived of the right to work,” he said, noting that even those employed by the United Nations are being barred from entering their offices, a move that constitutes a direct violation of the UN Charter and the principles of equality and non-discrimination.
He added that any effort to “normalize or recognize” the Taliban without concrete improvements in human rights would send a dangerous message to repressive regimes worldwide — that violations can be overlooked in exchange for political convenience.
The UN warning comes amid growing debate among some nations about limited engagement with the Taliban to address Afghanistan’s economic collapse. However, rights groups argue that such engagement would embolden a government that has systematically excluded women and minorities from public life.
Bennett concluded by calling for international solidarity with Afghan women and civil society, urging countries not to trade human rights for diplomatic access.
