The U.S. Department of State recently released a Joint Statement on the Situation of Women and Girls in Afghanistan co-signed by the U.S., European Union and others.
University of Minnesota Law School Professor Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin is available to provide expert comment on the special challenges faced by women with the return of Taliban control in Afghanistan.
Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin, LL.B., Ph.D.
“Under past Taliban rule, civil society didn’t exist because it was either killed or it left. Over the last 20 years, Afghanistan has been transformed into a place that had a vibrant, civil society where women were some of the most active and vocal participants in public, political life. Today, women journalists, doctors and politicians realize that their lives as they knew them are over.
“The United States must assist women now facing repression with the Taliban’s return to power. We need evacuation, we need humanitarian visas for these women, and we need the United States to open its weary arms.”
Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin is a University Regents Professor; holder of the Robina Chair in Law, Public Policy, and Society; and faculty director of the Human Rights Center at the Law School. She is concurrently a professor of law at the Queen’s University of Belfast, School of Law. In 2017, she was appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council as United Nations Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights and fundamental freedoms while countering terrorism. Her teaching and research interests are in the fields of international law, human rights law, national security law, transitional justice, and feminist legal theory.
Download a high-resolution image of Fionnuala D. Ní Aoláin.
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