Full .pdf joint statement | Watch the debate on UN WebTV at 1:37:34
Organization: Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada
Item 2: Enhanced Interactive Dialogue on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan
Date: 8 September 2025
Speaker: Rahima Toufan
Oral Statement to the 60th Session of the UN Human Rights Council from Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada (LRWC), the International Bar Association, NGOs in special consultative status, with endorsement from Judges for Judges, NGO without consultative status
Mr. President,
Lawyers’ Rights Watch Canada and the International Bar Association’s Human Rights Institute are alarmed by the dire human rights situation in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
We are alarmed by forced deportations of Afghan refugees from Iran and Pakistan, including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, human rights defenders, former government personnel, and women without male guardians. Upon return they face threats of arbitrary detention, torture, and targeted killings.
The Taliban have enacted laws erasing women’s faces from identification documents. Public violence has become widespread, including floggings, and daily reports emerge of women being killed with impunity, often by their husbands.
Forced displacement of Hazara families amount to ethnic cleansing and suspected genocide.
As a former prosecutor in cases of violence against women, I am profoundly disturbed by the normalization of horrific violence against women.
We call on the Council to:
- establish an independent investigative mechanism to document and analyze past and present human rights violations and international crimes; and
- urge States to provide urgent support, resettlement, and legal assistance to Afghan lawyers, judges, defenders, former government personnel, and unprotected women.
Thank you.
* This statement is endorsed by Judges for Judges, NGO without consultative status.
