UN rights chief calls for repeal of Afghan law turning women into ‘shadows’

The United Nations human rights chief on Tuesday called for Afghanistan’s Taliban to immediately repeal a set of “egregious” laws that it said were attempting to turn women into shadows.

High Commissioner Volker Turk said the passing of new laws last week “cements policies that completely erase women’s presence in public, silencing their voices and depriving them of their individual autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows.”

“This is utterly intolerable,” he said, addressing journalists via a spokesperson at a UN press briefing.