US Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the launch of the 'US-Afghan Consultative Mechanism' said that this Mechanism will enable US officials to engage more effectively with Afghan women and civil society.

“It’s going to make it easier for Afghan civil society groups to communicate and collaborate with American policymakers across a whole range of shared priorities – from supporting income-generating activities for Afghan women, to strategizing ways to help Afghan human rights monitors safely document abuses, to devising new methods to promote religious freedom,” Blinken was quoted as saying in a US State Dept. release.

The US Secretary of State added: “What we want to do is to make our partnerships with Afghan civil society more effective, more rigorous, more productive, more purposeful. And that’s what this new initiative is all about.”

While talking at the launch of the US Afghan Consultative Mechanism, Blinken said that the Islamic Emirate’s decision to ban girls from going to school was a reversal of commitments they made to the Afghan people and to the world.

“The Taliban’s decision to ban girls from attending secondary schools, a decision that happened while some girls were literally walking to school and others were already sitting at their desks, was a reversal of commitments they made to the Afghan people and to the world. For 314 days and counting, the girls of Afghanistan have sat at home while their brothers and cousins have been receiving educations. It’s a terrible, terrible waste,” State Department quoted Blinken’s remarks while talking to the meeting.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken further added that since the Islamic Emirate took over, they’ve silenced civil society and journalists in Afghanistan.

“Since the Taliban took over a year ago, they’ve reversed a great deal of the openness and progress that had been made over the previous decades. They’ve silenced civil society and journalists. In March, they banned independent international media like Voice of America and BBC from airing in Afghanistan. They continue to intimidate and censor Afghan media outlets. They stifled the free practice of religion for Muslims and non-Muslims alike,” the statement reads.