Earlier this month, the UN Human Rights Council appointed Richard Bennett as the Special Rapporteur (SR) for Afghanistan. His role is to oversee and document the violations of human rights. I spoke with him last week, followed by a meeting with a group of Afghan women who were discussing human rights conditions in Afghanistan.
Background on UN HR Special Rapporteur (SR)
The UN Human Rights (HR) Council charges the SR to conduct oversight of a nation or region. Bennett will oversee the collection of allegations of HR violations for all of Afghanistan, and then report them anonymously to the current regime in Kabul. The Taliban-Haqqani regime then has a limited time to investigate the violations and give a report to the SR. The SR also reports the incidents to the UN HR Council and General Assembly. The unpaid SR position is for a one-year term, and the Council took until April 1 to fill the role. That means the UNHRC will be reconsidering his position again this fall.
How UN Human Rights Council affects Afghanistan
The SR office will become the best formal route for Afghans to show the world how they are being treated by this regime. If Afghans choose not to utilize this outlet to report human rights allegations, diplomats from various nations will not have the evidence they need to put pressure on the Taliban-Haqqani regime. The UN and many nations will rely on these accounts and reports to assess progress or a lack of progress on human rights in Afghanistan. This data affects many critical topics such as sanctions, economic relationships, and recognition of diplomats and the government in Afghanistan.
How the process works
Bennett will not be operating in Afghanistan on a regular basis, and his small team will rely heavily on reports from Afghans and human rights groups to document the situation. Although he has conducted humanitarian work in Afghanistan since 2003, Bennett wants to ensure that he is “speaking with Afghan women about the issues, and not speaking for them.” His aims are to ensure Afghan women’s voices are heard by the world and hopefully directly to the Taliban regime if possible. In his view, this effort to create an honest human rights assessment should also strengthen civil society and ensure survivors are at the center of the process.
To report an allegation of human rights violations to the UN Human Rights Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan use the public office email at: hrc-sr-afghanistan@un.org
The UN staff manage this email address, and it is a formal channel to report human rights violations to the UN. Bennett assured us that the Taliban-Haqqani Regime are not given any names or identifying information about the allegation contributor.
Bennett and his tiny team have a busy few months ahead before the September Human Rights report in Geneva, and the follow-on report in New York City to the UN General Assembly. Afghan women I spoke with are pleased to see this position finally filled, and are already busy gathering cases and trying to find ways to ensure all facts of human rights violations come to light.
