India-led UN sanctions panel puts travel ban on Taliban members over failure on women rights

Two Taliban members of the current regime in Kabul have not been given any waiver from sanctions by the Taliban sanctions committee of the United Nations Security Council.  No waiver means they won't be able to travel outside of Afghanistan. The waiver hasn't been given to two key persons involved in education policy--acting deputy education minister Ahmad Shaidkhel & Minister of Higher Education Abdul Baqi Haqqani--over failure on women rights, especially on allowing school education to girls. 

Usually, 15 members of the Taliban are given exemptions, or waivers from the United Nations sanctions for a specific time frame. This time, only 13 are given, and for the first time 2 Taliban members are not given a waiver. Those given waivers are given for a time frame of 90 days, but after 60 days, if anyone has objection things can change.

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India's ambassador to the United Nations, T.S. Tirumurti is the chair of Taliban sanction committee, also known as the 1988 sanctions committee. The Committee comprises all 15 members of the Security Council and makes its decision by consensus. The committee has 2 Vice-Chairs for 2022 -- Russia and the United Arab Emirates. The committee is mandated to oversee the implementation of the sanctions measures, designate individuals and entities who meet the listing criteria among others.

While Taliban has got tacit support, especially by some permanent members of the United Nations Security Council, this time the committee did not provide the waiver to send a message across that the grouping has to walk the talk on women's rights. There are no women in the Taliban governance structure and since the collapse of the Afghan Republic last August, things haven't been on a positive trajectory of women in the country. Recently, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet said that the country is witnessing "institutionalized systematic oppression of women".

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Meanwhile, former Afghan President Hamid Karzai and former members of the republic have proposed to the Taliban to hold a Loya Jirga. Loya Jirga, an Afghan way of governance, is a grand assembly of leadership across the country to take a decision based on consensus. It represents the panchayat form of governance, but at a national scale. It was 2002 Loya Jirga, after the Bonn conference that appointed Hamid Kazai as the President of the Afghan Transitional Administration. The first known Loya Jirga is said to have taken place in 1747, that appointed Ahmad Shah Durrani as the King of Afghanistan who later established the modern state of Afghanistan. So far, the Taliban has not shown any interest in holding such a meeting.

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