empowering women and girls

Roza Otunbayeva, Special Representative of the Secretary-General and Head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, briefs reporters after the Security Council meeting on the situation in the country.

UN Photo/Rick Bajornas

Afghanistan now ‘most repressive country’ for women, Security Council hears

8 March 2023

Afghanistan under the Taliban remains the “most repressive country in the world [for] women’s rights”, the senior UN official in Kabul told the Security Council on Wednesday, while nevertheless voicing a nuanced position on the importance of continuing to engage with the group.

Child marriage is a strategy for economic survival in Afghanistan as families marry off their daughters to reduce their economic burden.

News in Brief 8 March 2023

8 March 2023

News in Brief

Afghanistan: Experts urge Taliban to end ‘harmful annihilation’ of women’s freedoms
Cholera vaccination campaign begins in quake-hit northwest Syria
United Kingdom: UN refugee agency concerned about new asylum bill

Bagan, a city in the Mandalay Region of Myanmar.

Unsplash/Ajay Karpur

News in Brief 3 March 2023

3 March 2023

News in Brief

Myanmar: Tatmadaw’s ‘scorched earth’ policy in spotlight
Iran urged to investigate allegations of school ‘poisonings’
For first time, women represented in all parliaments worldwide

Somaya Faruqi (centre) works alongside students at Missouri University of Science and Technology to build a robot.

News in Brief 16 February 2023

16 February 2023

News in Brief

Guterres leads call to extend education to kids in emergencies
$84 million appeal launched to address migrant flows to Yemen: IOM
UN chief launches $1 billion humanitarian appeal for Türkiye

Digital ambition: How one Afghan student plans to get girls back to school

16 February 2023

Interviews

Somaya Faruqi is one of the lucky ones. She managed to escape from Afghanistan in August 2021, just as the Taliban overran the country’s capital. Today, while the 20-year-old engineering student pursues a degree in the US, her former classmates back home have been banned from the classroom. In support of this week’s Education Cannot Wait conference in Geneva and its call for learning support in emergencies, Somaya has been speaking to UN News’s Daniel Johnson.

A female Afghan volunteer engaged in a UNHCR-supported education project in Jalalabad, Afghanistan.

News in Brief 19 January 2023

19 January 2023

News in Brief

UNESCO to honour Afghan girls and women on International Day of Education
Northern Ireland: UK ‘immunity’ legislation could hamper victims’ rights
Top rights experts to advise on Zambia lead poisoning court case

Students attend class at a school in Kaya, Burkina Faso.

News in Brief 16 January 2023

16 January 2023

News in Brief

Economic slowdown likely to force workers to accept lower quality jobs - ILO
UN rights chief’s condemnation for Burkina Faso ‘broad daylight’ abductions
Pakistan: rights experts urge action on coerced religious conversions, child marriage