Outgoing United Nations (UN) Executive Director of Women, Phumzile Mlambo-Ngcuka, says the UN managed to change laws in Afghanistan to protect women and girls in that country.
The Taliban have seized power in the country leaving civilians uncertain of their future especially women and girls.
“In Afghanistan, we changed the laws. They got the most progressive laws on violence against women and on women’s economic empowerment. These are some of the gains that we just fear we could lose and we obviously we want to wait and see what would happen. We have stretched our hands to Afghanistan asking for peace. We don’t want to see blood in Afghanistan and many women, young people in Afghanistan have just never known peace. ”
Uganda agrees to temporarily take in refugees from Afghanistan
Meanwhile, Uganda has agreed to a request from the United States to temporarily take in 2 000 refugees from Afghanistan fleeing after the Taliban takeover. The East African nation has long experience of receiving people escaping conflict and currently hosts about 1.4 million refugees, mostly from South Sudan. It was unclear when the refugees will start arriving.
