The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) is a well-meaning international agency full of well-meaning people who, well, mean well.
That doesn’t mean they possess any common sense or any sense at all — including a sense of reality.
UNICEF 'quite optimistic' after Taliban comments on girls' education, official says https://t.co/Vkd812zkvP pic.twitter.com/vJEfFr3UKm
— Reuters (@Reuters) August 17, 2021
I suppose that if you blocked out the history of the Taliban the last time they were in power, you might be excused for being so cheeky about the prospects for women and girls in a Taliban Afghanistan. But being “quite optimistic” about the future of women and girls in Afghanistan in 2021 demands a special kind of stupidity that only comes from fuzzy-headed leftists living in a dream world.
“We have ongoing discussions, we are quite optimistic based on those discussions,” UNICEF chief of field operations in Afghanistan Mustapha Ben Messaoud told a U.N. briefing Tuesday. “We have not a single issue with the Taliban in those field offices.”
U.N. chief Antonio Guterres said Monday the Taliban are implementing “chilling” crackdowns on human rights, including particular violations against women and girls. The insurgents are infamous for their mistreatment of women during their previous rule of the country in the late 1990s and early 2000s, including not allowing girls to attend school and or women to leave their homes without a male relative. Women who violated the archaic laws were subject to punishments such as stoning.
There are few women on the streets of Kabul today. Soon, they will enjoy all the rights granted to women in the Quran, as the Taliban spokesman pointed out. If that’s such a swell thing, why are Afghan women terrified?
UNICEF said some of the local Taliban officials were waiting on guidance from their leadership on the issue of education for young girls. Others apparently said they want schools “up and running,” according to Reuters.
Ben Messaoud said UNICEF had not yet made contact with Taliban leadership in Kabul, which was overrun by the group in recent days. U.S. forces are still trying to evacuate American citizens and Afghan allies from the city’s airport, while Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar arrived in the city from Pakistan on Tuesday.
None of that matters to anyone with an ounce of suspicion about the ultimate goals of the Taliban. Fox News reports on one display of Taliban liberality of spirit and broadmindedness.
This week, the Taliban is encouraging women to return to work and girls to go back to school, where headscarves are being handed out, according to The Associated Press. But a damning photo shows a woman in district Taloqan, Takhar province, lying in a pool of blood as her parents and others crouch around her, a pitcher on the ground nearby. She was shot and killed for going out without a burqa.
As long as naive nitwits like those in UNICEF have any power in international affairs, murderous thugs like the Taliban will literally be able to get away with murder.
Related: Taliban Guarantees Women’s Rights ‘Within the Limits of Islam.’ That’s Not Reassuring.
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