UNITED NATIONS - Afghan women earned the right to vote more than a century ago, but today, under Taliban rule, they are practically erased from public life, Academy Award-winning actress Meryl Streep, who is also a prominent advocate for women’s rights, said at the United Nations on Monday. “Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman. A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face.
She may chase a squirrel into the park. A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today, because the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban,” she said Ms Streep joined several prominent Afghan women activists at the event “The Inclusion of Women in the Future of Afghanistan” on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in New York. “A bird may sing in Kabul, but a girl may not and a woman may not in public.
This is extraordinary. This is a suppression of the natural law. This is odd,” she said, referring to the Taliban’s latest edict for Afghan women, banning their voices and presence from public spaces.
The meeting was co-hosted by Ireland, Indonesia, Switzerland and Qatar, in partnership with the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, which works to ensure that Afghan women are included in any dialogue and decision-making at the international level on the future of their country. It came on the eve of the annual debate in the General Assembly, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres took time out of his packed .