Academy Award-winning actress and refugee activist Angelina Jolie backed women inclusion as part of the country’s nearly half population in Afghan peace talks during an address to ministers and diplomats at the United Nations on Friday.
It comes amid ongoing peace negotiations between the US and Taliban representatives, where women fear the freedoms eked out since the US-backed Afghan forces overthrow the Taliban regime in 2001 could slide backwards, and complain their voices are being compromised.
“In Afghanistan thousands of women have recently come together in public risking their lives to ask that their rights and the rights of their children be guaranteed in peace negotiations that so far they have been allow no part of,” Jolie told a ministerial meeting on UN peacekeeping, as Reuters quoted.
Jolie said that international community’s silent could breed not much of success, adding peace and stability in Afghanistan or in any other nation would be impossible if role of the women are being whitewashed.
“The international community’s silent response is alarming to say the least,” said Jolie, a special envoy for the UN refugee agency UNHCR, which she began working with 18 years ago. “There can be no peace or stability in Afghanistan or anywhere else in the world that involves trading away the rights of women.”
Meanwhile, the Taliban has said in official statements they might consider more liberal policies toward women – giving them the right to gain education and right to practice outstanding role in country’s growth, but limited to Islamic law.
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