MORE than two-thirds of the United Nations security council’s members demanded on Monday that the Taliban rescind all policies and decrees oppressing and discriminating against women and girls.

The UN said the Taliban must end attacks including its ban on girls receiving education above Year 6 and women’s right to work and move around freely.

A statement by 11 of the 15 council members condemned the Taliban’s oppression of women and girls since they took power in August 2021, and again insisted on their equal participation in public, political, economic, cultural and social life — especially at all decision-making levels seeking to advance international engagement with Afghanistan’s de facto rulers.

Guyana’s UN ambassador Carolyn Rodrigues-Birkett read the statement, surrounded by ambassadors of the 10 other countries, before a closed council meeting on UN secretary-general Antonio Guterres’s conference with more than 25 envoys to Afghanistan in Qatar’s capital, Doha, last week.

The 11 council nations supporting the statement were Ecuador, France, Guyana, Japan, Malta, Sierra Leone, Slovenia, South Korea, Switzerland, Britain and the United States.

Russia, China, Mozambique and Algeria did not sign.

Each of the countries that declined to sign has traditionally objected to the UN interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

Afghan civil society representatives, including women, participated in the Doha meeting. 

The Taliban refused to attend, its foreign ministry saying in a statement that its participation would be “beneficial” only if it was the sole and official representative for the country at the talks.

The Taliban have not been recognised by any country, and the UN envoy for Afghanistan last year warned them that international recognition as the country’s legitimate government will remain “nearly impossible” unless they lift the restrictions on women.