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Righting Wrongs

Cayla Chun, St. Olaf College – Northfield, Minnesota Bridging Faith and Rights: Promoting Women’s Rights in Taliban-Controlled Afghanistan  [Download PDF] This paper analyzes the Taliban’s repression of Afghan women as a violation of international human right standards under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention of the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. It questions how the international community should respond without imposing Western-centric human rights frameworks that disregard Afghan cultural and religious contexts. Recognizing that coercive, Western-led interventions have failed to produce sustainable change and have worsened instability, this paper contends that effective support must integrate progressive Islamic jurisprudence with universal human rights principles while centering Afghan women’s voices and local advocacy.   In Afghanistan, the Taliban have effectively erased women and girls from the public sphere b…