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BY ROXY SZAL | In a letter signed by almost 100 signatories, feminist leaders and advocates are urging the Biden-Harris administration “not to agree to a deal that includes recognition and support of a Taliban regime” and that “any deal by the United States that would include recognition and support of the Taliban regime would be a reversal of U.S. commitments that were made …” and would undermine the administration’s commitments to human rights globally.
Second, the letter urges the Biden administration to take immediate action to save the lives of Afghan “women’s rights and human rights leaders and advocates … who are now being targeted by the Taliban.”
The letter credits the work of Afghan women’s rights and human rights leaders [that] “led to increases in education and opportunities for Afghan women and girls, increases in representation of Afghan women in government and all sectors of society, improvements in civil liberties and civil rights, and decreases in maternal and infant mortality.”
“All of these gains—and the very lives and futures of Afghan women and girls—are now in grave jeopardy.”
The letter was signed by a wide range of civil society members—ranging from current and former lawmakers, to voting rights advocates, to racial justice leaders—including Melanne Verveer, former U.S. ambassador for global women’s issues; Eleanor Smeal, president of the Feminist Majority Foundation (publisher of Ms.); Dolores Huerta; Gloria Steinem; Cecile Richards, co-founder of Supermajority; former U.S. Senator Russ Feingold; National Organization for Women president Christian Nunes; Marcela Howell, president and CEO of In Our Own Voice: National Black Women’s Reproductive Justice Agenda; Erin Vilardi, CEO of Vote Run Lead; Dani Ayers, CEO of MeToo International; and many more.
(To read the letter, click here.)
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