The UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres laying out his priorities for 2022 at the General Assembly in New York on Friday also touched upon the issue of Afghanistan and human rights in the country.

Guterres said respect for the rights of women and girls and human rights in general is required for the Islamic Emirate to gain recognition and also obtain international support.

“It is absolutely essential for them in the context of their objective of recognition, but also in the context of their objective of getting international support for their own people, it is absolutely essential to have full respect for the rights of women and girls and to have a positive approach to human rights in general,” he said.

Talking about global problems, Guterres said the world is facing a five-alarm global fire that requires the full mobilization and support of all countries. 

“I want to begin the year by raising five alarms – on COVID-19, global finance, climate action, lawlessness in cyber space, and peace and security,” he said. “Now is the time to simply list and lament challenges, now is the time to act,” he added.

In an interview with the Associated Press, Guterres called for acceleration of humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, saying Afghans are facing risks of death by hunger and disease. 

“Let's separate things. One thing is the Taliban. The other thing is the Afghan people, and we cannot have a collective punishment of the Afghan people for wrong things that are done by the Taliban. So it is absolutely essential in the present situation to massively increase humanitarian assistance to the Afghans because the Afghans are in a desperate situation with the risks of death by hunger, death by disease, with the winter, you can imagine the winter in Afghanistan, with COVID. I mean, it's a desperate situation. More than half of the population is in desperate need of humanitarian aid, and these needs to be provided,” he said.

The remarks are expressed at a time that the Islamic Emirate has been insisting that everyone, including women, will enjoy their rights under Islamic laws and principles.

Women’s rights to work and girls’ right to education has been two key issues the international community has set as part of the conditions for recognition. Following the collapse of the former government, secondary girls’ schools have remained closed in most parts of the country.

An Islamic Emirate spokesman, Zabihullah Mujahid in a recent interview with the Associated Press said they are working to reopen all the schools in the new year. 

“We are trying to solve these problems by the coming year,” Mujahis asserted.

The US special envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West has said that the international community will pay the salaries of Afghan teachers if the Islamic Emirate reopens all girls’ schools in the coming school year.