Firmly Asking The Taliban To Stop Restricting Women's Rights, G7: It’s Isolating Them From The International Community

Illustration of Afghan woman wearing a face covering. (Wikimedia Commons/US Air Force photo/Staff Sgt. Brian Ferguson)

JAKARTA - Foreign ministers of the Group of Seven (G7) countries on Thursday said increasing restrictions imposed by the Taliban on the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan will only isolate them.

"With these measures, the Taliban are further isolating themselves from the international community," said the G7 foreign ministers and EU foreign policy chief.

In a joint statement published by France, they called on the Taliban to take urgent action to lift restrictions on women and girls, and respect their human rights.

Earlier, the Taliban, who returned to power when the Afghan government collapsed last year, on Saturday ordered women to cover their faces in public, in another step towards the rule of their hardline past.

However, many women in the Afghan capital are delaying their return to fully cover their faces in public in defiance of orders from the Islamic rulers of the Taliban, others are staying at home and some are wearing COVID-19 face masks.

However, the consequences of disobedience were directed at a woman's closest male family member, ranging from warnings to imprisonment.

It was unclear if any of the men had yet to face consequences as of Wednesday and Taliban authorities said they would first focus on "pushing" compliance.

Separately, the United States will take steps to increase pressure on the Afghan Taliban government, to reverse several recent decisions restricting the rights of women and girls, if the hardline group shows no sign of undoing its own actions.

"We have discussed it directly with the Taliban," State Department spokesman Ned Price said Monday.

"We have a number of tools that, if we feel this is not going to be reversed, this is not going to be undone, that we are ready to move forward."

He did not elaborate on possible steps or indicate how the group, which has implemented a policy limiting 20 years' gain for girls' and women's rights, might change its mind.