The Human Consciousness Now...Our World in the Midst of Becoming...to What? Observe, contemplate Now.
FAYZABAD, Afghanistan, Aug 21 2026 (IPS) - Afghanistan has seen a number of unexplained murders in recent months.
One of the latest victims is Lailuma, the wife of well-known local singer Salam Maftoon and a community activist.
The murder took place in Ishkashim district, in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, Afghanistan, in early May. Lailuma was arriving at her restaurant when unidentified assailants shot her in a market area near the provincial government buildings.
Locals say there were several witnesses to the incident and that the attackers fled the scene immediately after the shooting. People rushed to help Lailuma, who was seriously injured, but she died before reaching the hospital. She was 35 years old.
The attackers have not yet been identified, and the motive for the murder is not officially known.
Lailuma’s senseless murder left many women in a state of terror and deep grief, locals say. Women who previously worked in tailoring workshops or at food stalls selling traditional bolani bread have now stopped working, fearing Lailuma’s fate
Lailuma is not the only victim. In May, the online media outlet Rawa News reported on several recent murders across the country. Among the victims was well-known tribal leader Hajiullah Nazar, who was shot.
According to the human rights organization Rawadar, at least, 611 people were killed or injured in targeted attacks, summary executions or other similar incidents in Afghanistan last year. This is more than 40 percent more than the previous year.
The majority of the victims were men. Among them were former government employees, people allegedly linked to the opposition, protesters, tribal leaders and other prominent figures in the community.
Targeted killings are particularly worrying in remote provinces, where the authorities’ capacity to provide security is limited, Rawa News reports. For example, Lailuma’s home province of Badakhshan has been plagued by clashes between various armed groups.
Lailuma opened a women-only restaurant and tailoring workshop in the city after the Taliban closed schools and universities to girls.
Her goal was to provide girls and women, as well as herself, with employment opportunities amid the difficult conditions in Afghanistan. At the same time, she sought to protect them from forced marriages.
Seven women worked in the restaurant and 11 girls in the tailoring workshop. The girls also received training for their work.
Lailuma also supported her family with her work, as restrictions on performing music had taken away her musician husband’s income. He has not been able to perform in concerts or festivals due to the restrictions imposed by the Taliban regime.
“I remember well how my wife worked in her restaurant together with other women and how active the girls in the tailoring workshop were. She was very enthusiastic about her work and emphasized to her colleagues that you should never lose hope,” Maftoon says.
He doesn’t understand what his wife’s “crime” was that she had to die for it.
Fatima (name changed), a 45-year-old close relative of Lailuma, says that it was the first restaurant in her village. Most residents in the area had never seen a restaurant for women only before.
“Women could go to a restaurant and eat together. It made us happy.”
Fatima can’t understand why Lailuma had to be killed.
Lailuma had already received several anonymous death threats, but she ignored them. She would often say that one day she would be able to help the women of her own village overcome their difficulties. Instead, she herself became a victim.
Lailuma’s senseless murder left many women in a state of terror and deep grief, locals say. Women who previously worked in tailoring workshops or at food stalls selling traditional bolani bread have now stopped working, fearing Lailuma’s fate.
Many of them do not even dare to attend funerals or wedding ceremonies. Recently, fewer and fewer women have been seen in the village center or at the local market.
“I don’t think any of the girls in this village dare to go to work or be active in any way. They don’t even dare to leave their homes,” says one villager.
Rahima (name changed), who also worked at Lailuma’s restaurant, says that after that day she has not dared to work again.
“That day they killed Lailuma. On another day it could be someone else from our restaurant.”
Nadia (name changed), a women’s rights activist, says that Afghan women are currently not safe even in the few jobs they still have. Most of the work available to them is related to small-scale private entrepreneurship, such as tailoring, handicrafts or, alternatively, working in a restaurant.
“Mysterious murders like this make women give up hope of getting a job or maintaining social relationships. Even life itself can seem meaningless.”
She hopes that the international community and human rights organizations will be more active in highlighting the violence and oppression experienced by Afghan women, which is present everywhere, both inside and outside the home.
Excerpt:
The author is an Afghanistan-based female journalist, trained with Finnish support before the Taliban take-over. Her identity is withheld for security reasons
DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania, Aug 21 2026 (IPS) - The 14-year-old girl arrived at the hospital fighting for her life. After a tragic hit-and-run car accident, she was rushed into the emergency department with serious abdominal injuries. Every passing minute brought her closer to death.
“There was internal bleeding,” recalls Dr Iddi Muhammad Juma, a surgeon at Tanzania’s Same District Hospital. “We performed an ultrasound and took her to theatre immediately,” he tells IPS.
When surgeons opened her abdomen, they found a ruptured spleen floating inside the abdominal cavity.
Applying the structured emergency approach taught in the World Health Organisation’s Basic Emergency Care course, the team stopped the bleeding and removed the ruptured spleen. The girl survived.
For Juma, the case illustrates how a systematic response to an emergency saves lives.
“If we had delayed, she could have died. Because of the BEC training, we acted quickly to save her life,” he says.
His experience highlights changes across Tanzania as the government improves emergency care in rural hospitals to save the lives of the injured and critically ill patients.
Tanzania has expanded access to healthcare over the past two decades, but emergency care remains weak. Many district hospitals lack trained staff, equipment and essential supplies, while clinicians — especially in rural areas where patients often travel hours for treatment — have had little practical training in rapidly assessing and handling life-threatening emergencies with limited resources.
To address the problem, the Ministry of Health, in partnership with the Emergency Medicine Association of Tanzania (EMAT) with support from WHO, has launched the Accelerating Community and Transformative Learning for Basic Emergency Care (ACTxBEC) initiative to train health workers in 250 hospitals countrywide to manage medical emergencies using evidence-based practices designed for resource-limited settings.
Michael Kiremeji, an official at the Ministry of Health, says the initiative aims to strengthen emergency and critical care at district hospitals where most patients first seek treatment.
“We want to ensure that timely and quality life-saving emergency care is accessible to every patient regardless of where they live,” he tells IPS
He says many deaths and disabilities caused by trauma, obstetric emergencies and severe infections can be prevented if health workers have the skills to rapidly assess, stabilise and manage critically ill patients.
Doctors say the training has improved teamwork, confidence and decision-making during emergencies, showing that life-saving care depends more on skilled, decisive action than on advanced technology.
Perched on a wind-swept highway linking Tanzania’s commercial capital, Dar es Salaam, with the northern Kilimanjaro region, Same District Hospital has long grappled with a steady flow of road crash victims, especially during holidays when travel peaks, doctors say.
Before the BEC training, the hospital could only stabilise patients with severe chest, abdominal or pelvic injuries before referring them to Kilimanjaro Christian Medical Centre (KCMC), about 100 kilometres away.
“We learned how to quickly identify air or blood in the chest and insert life-saving chest tubes. We also mastered simple airway techniques like the chin lift and jaw thrust—basic life-saving skills.” Dr Juma tells IPS.
Hundreds of kilometres away at Tumbi Regional Hospital in Tanzania’s Coast Region, Dr Sami Kyaruzi says the BEC course has simplified doctors’ responses to emergencies.
He recalls a 45-year-old man with stab wounds who arrived at the emergency room alert and breathing normally. A chest X-ray showed blood and air trapped in the chest, but his condition initially appeared stable.
Within minutes, however, his breathing became laboured, his blood pressure dropped and one side of his chest bulged unevenly. While the sudden decline could have puzzled many clinicians, Kyaruzi recognised the signs.
“We immediately relieved the pressure in his chest with a needle, then inserted a chest tube,” Kyaruzi tells IPS. “His condition improved quickly, and he was later discharged.”
Despite his emergency medicine background, Kyaruzi says the hands-on demonstration during the course changed how he puts that knowledge into practice.
“We learned how to assess trauma patients, stabilize the neck and spine, support breathing, and deliver oxygen correctly.”
He believes Tanzania should invest in simulation laboratories where clinicians can hone their life-saving skills before facing real emergencies.
“Investing in emergency care training is a necessity,” he says. “Strengthening capacity at the district hospitals will save many lives.”
At Bagamoyo District Hospital on the Indian Ocean coast, Dr Makubi Gyalisi says the change brought by the BEC programme has improved his confidence.
Now head of the hospital’s emergency department, Gyalisi oversees critically ill and injured patients. But before attending the training, he says managing life-threatening emergencies was hard.
“The training changed the way I handle emergencies. I now approach critically ill patients with confidence and follow a systematic process,” he says.
That confidence was tested when a young man arrived after a grisly car crash. His right leg had been chopped, he sustained severe head injuries and was terribly shocked.
The emergency team adeptly followed the structured approach taught during the BEC course.
“We assessed his airway and breathing, treated his shock with IV fluids, immobilised his neck and prepared him for blood transfusion before referral,” Gyalisi says.
Doctors contacted orthopaedic specialists in Dar es Salaam to explain his condition and the treatment already provided.
“They really appreciated the steps we had taken,” he says.
For Gyalisi, the case demonstrated that survival often depends less on where a patient is treated than on how quickly and systematically care begins. “The training improved my confidence and skills to manage emergency cases in an organised and systematic way,” he says
Across Tanzania, life-threatening emergencies continue to strain district hospitals, often the first point of care for critically ill patients.
From Kilimanjaro to Bagamoyo and Kibaha, district hospitals face a shortage of staff, medicines and equipment to handle emergencies.
As Tanzania expands the ACTxBEC initiative to more health facilities, frontline doctors hope those transferable skills will help provide timely life-saving care to patients before it is too late.
IPS UN Bureau Report
LONDON, Aug 21 2026 (IPS) - India’s strongman leader, Narendra Modi, has just been forced to do the thing he likes least: making concessions in response to protests.
It all started on 15 May, when the country’s Chief Justice, Surya Kant, told a courtroom that unemployed young people who protest and speak out on social media are like cockroaches. The remark, revealing the establishment’s contempt for the country’s young people, spectacularly backfired. Within days it had spawned a nationwide movement, the Cockroach Janta Party. Its central protest demand was the resignation of Education Minister Dharmendra Pradhan. Pradhan quit on 25 July. But that may not be enough to satisfy the demand for change the movement has unleashed.
Birth of a movement
India has more Gen Z people than any other country. Around 407 million Indians, some 30 per cent of the population, are aged 14 to 29. They face extraordinary competition to access education and struggle to find jobs.
Kant’s remark sparked a fire. Communications strategist Abhijeet Dipke asked on social media: what if all the cockroaches came together? That question kickstarted a viral movement under a name, the Cockroach Janta Party, that playfully echoes that of the ruling Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). What began as a satirical website quickly became a movement. Within two weeks, it had 22 million Instagram followers.
The cockroach movement fits into a broader global pattern. Recent years have seen Gen Z mobilise in numbers in many countries where governments are demonstrably out of touch and economies and political systems fail young people. Movements are characterised by collective leadership, mass protests and strategic use of social media. India’s time to join the wave had come.
The movement soon found its galvanising cause. India’s education system relies on make-or-break entrance exams, with results deciding the career prospects of millions. In the medical college exam, some 2.2 million students compete for 130,000 places. Families make sacrifices and students spend years preparing. But corruption means questions are often leaked in return for bribes. Two weeks before Kant’s outburst, the national medical college entrance exam paper was leaked and the exam was cancelled. Students despaired. Then they got angry.
Protest prevails
Protesters camped out for weeks in central Delhi, demanding Pradhan’s resignation. Volunteers supplied food, water, medicines and camping equipment. The movement broadened well beyond Gen Z, with people of all ages joining. Sonam Wangchuk, an environmental and education reform activist previously jailed for protesting, further raised the protest’s profile with a weeks-long hunger strike.
For seven weeks the government tried ignoring the protesters, and when that failed, it turned to violence. After authorities forcibly hospitalised Wangchuk, thousands of protesters marched from the protest site to parliament. Security forces responded with pellet guns and teargas, beat protesters and bystanders with batons and wooden sticks and detained many. The violence, widely documented on social media, was shocking for a country that prides itself on being the world’s biggest democracy. It was impossible to ignore, sparking protests in other towns and cities. The government was finally forced to hold talks.
Looking ahead
The government has promised fast-track courts for exam leakers and a review of the exam and education systems. In return, the movement called off the protests, having also secured a promise that no protester would face repercussions. But that’s not the way of a government that has long repressed dissent. Modi’s administration has a track record of detaining activists, using force against protests, censoring critical voices and passing restrictive laws. India has recently been added to the CIVICUS Monitor Watchlist because of its deteriorating civic space. Since the cockroach protests ended, police have detained and harassed hundreds of students and reportedly targeted their families.
Pradhan’s resignation was a remarkable event. The government had never before responded to pressure by sacking an unpopular minister. But the BJP doesn’t appear to have learned much. During a recent by-election campaign, its national president, Nitin Nabin, described protesters as ‘a virus and a cockroach gang devoted to breaking the country’.
Modi may have bought breathing space, but the underlying problems remain. The causes are both economic, with high youth unemployment and evident inequality, and political, with a high-handed government that doesn’t listen to young people or respect their right to dissent. Further protests look likely. One, sparked by similar corruption complaints over a civil service entry exam, has mobilised in Jharkhand state.
This isn’t the first time Modi’s government has bent to pressure. In 2021, sustained farmers’ protests forced it to drop farming law changes. Modi’s support fell in the 2024 general election, forcing him to rely on coalition partners. More recently, his party looked to be on the up again, winning power in West Bengal state for the first time in April following controversial changes to the electoral roll that removed over nine million names, disproportionately Muslim voters and others less likely to support the BJP. But it has just lost the by-election where Nitin Nabin repeated the cockroach slur.
The cockroach movement may present Modi’s biggest challenge to date, because it cuts across class, party and religious divides, making it much harder to dismiss. The BJP built its base among Hindus by vilifying Muslims, yet at the Delhi protest, people from both religions prayed side by side. The movement’s social media cut-through is also significant. It bypassed a conventional media largely co-opted by the BJP that typically parrots its lines and downplays other viewpoints.
The government should read the room, but there’s every chance it will learn the wrong lesson and go after protest leaders. That will be a recipe for further protests and a repeated cycle of state violence and criminalisation. If India is to live up to its promise as the world’s biggest democracy, it must deepen democratic freedoms, recognise the value of dissent and acknowledge that the young people it branded cockroaches have much to contribute to their country’s future.
Andrew Firmin is CIVICUS Editor-in-Chief, co-director and writer for CIVICUS Lens and co-author of the State of Civil Society Report.
For interviews or more information, please contact research@civicus.org
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 21 2026 (IPS) - As the global HIV response shifts toward sustainable, nationally led, and rights-based care, a new UNAIDS framework published this week argues that integration must start with a country’s readiness.
The report — Operationalizing HIV Integration —published on August 17th, introduces the concept of “protective verticality”, which recognizes that countries begin integrating HIV care at different starting points; therefore, integration should begin according to a country’s readiness, epidemiological patterns, financing realities, and health system capacity.
The report paid particular attention to how in active conflict, fragile settings and outbreak zones, countries need to focus on the deliberate preservation of dedicated and stand-alone HIV infrastructure. “Protective verticality” comes into play because integrating this type of care into national health systems can be dangerous when these systems are themselves on the brink of collapse. The core principle is not a “rapid merger of HIV functions into weak or unstable platforms, but protection of essential services while progressively strengthening the systems, partnerships, financing arrangements and safeguards needed for integration,” the report stated. The focus is on protecting before integrating.
To accomplish this, the report put forth a three-phase approach to show that countries should only move forward in integrating HIV care once they have met the minimum safeguards and proven the health systems’ readiness:
1. ‘Stabilization’; to protect HIV service continuity,2. ‘Connection”; to strengthen health care and community relationships,
3. ‘Embed’; to align HIV functions with national planning integration when ready.
The focus on HIV integration comes at a time of one of the largest reductions to international funding in decades. In July, UNAIDS reported that international HIV financing fell 18 percent in 2025, from USD 8.8 billion in 2024 to USD 7.3 billion in 2025, marking the lowest level of funding in over two decades.
“The era of relying on international aid is over,” said Winnie Byanyima, Executive Director of UNAIDS.
In 2025, 1.2 million people became infected with HIV, and 570,000 people died of AIDS-related illnesses. The reduction in international funding combined with the already fragile HIV response is exactly what the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework is designed to navigate.
The HIV and Ebola crisis across the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) showcases the importance of this framework. In May, as the Ebola outbreak surged across the Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu provinces, UNAIDS reported that fear of Ebola exposure in health facilities drove some people living with HIV to avoid community antiretroviral therapy distribution points and miss clinic appointments.
In response, UNAIDS helped integrate HIV protections directly into the DRC’s National Ebola Preparedness and Response Plan. UNAIDS also supported the development of an HIV Mitigation Plan to support the continuity of treatment across the affected regions and protect people living with HIV. These actions highlight a real-world example of the “stabilize” and “connect” phases the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework covers.
Sudan illustrates a longer-running version of the same crisis. When war broke out in April 2023, medical supply chains were cut off, and 75 percent of hospitals in conflict areas closed down, disrupting HIV treatment for thousands of people. In January, more than 1,000 days into the conflict, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported on its work with the Global Fund and the National Medical Supply Fund to maintain HIV treatment for patients in hard-to-reach settings. The response included setting up mobile primary health facilities to provide HIV testing and establishing cross-border access routes to deliver HIV medicines into Darfur. Due to the years of conflict, displacement, and medical supplies and personnel shortages, Sudan’s health system remains severely damaged. The conditions across Sudan highlight the importance of “protective verticality,” as any rapid and uniform integration of HIV care into the national health system remains difficult without Sudan’s readiness.
These cases highlight why the Operationalizing HIV Integration framework does not treat integration as a global uniform model. Dismantling HIV infrastructure in settings where health systems are actively under siege for integration purposes risks reversing fragile HIV progress. Sustainability and protection need to be examined, as the report argued integration should not be seen as the automatic absorption of all HIV services or systems into broader platforms. Strategic system transformation is needed.
IPS UN Bureau Report
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 20 2026 (IPS) - World Humanitarian Day celebrates humanitarian workers and the life-saving services they provide under the most complex and often dangerous conditions.
This year, UN leaders are urging the international community to protect humanitarians working in conflict zones and to seek accountability for those who have been injured or killed in their line of duty.
In late 2008, the UN General Assembly designated August 19th as World Humanitarian Day, five years after the terrorist attack at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, where 22 UN staff members were killed, including the then Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello.
On Wednesday, UN Secretary-General António Guterres paid tribute to the fallen UN staffers on the 23rd anniversary of the terrorist attack, remarking that their legacy “lives on in every humanitarian worker delivering assistance amid conflict, disaster and despair”.
Guterres also noted that international humanitarian laws meant to protect civilians and humanitarian workers are being violated “with alarming frequency and impunity”.
According to the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 2025 set a new record for violence against humanitarian workers, with 712 incidents recorded, in which 350 workers were killed, 322 were injured, 235 kidnapped, and 280 detained. This year alone there have been 136 major incidents, as reported in the Humanitarian Outcomes’ Aid Worker Security Database. It is only indicative of the growing number of incidents against humanitarian workers in recent years. This represents a jump from 300 reported attacks in 2022 to 471 in 2023 and then 634 incidents in 2024.
“Behind those grim numbers… are names. They are colleagues, they are our friends, they are families, and they are the best of us,” said Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
Tom Fletcher, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, briefs reporters for World Humanitarian Day. Credit: Naureen Hossain/IPS
Fletcher spoke to reporters virtually from Ukraine, where he is visiting affected areas of the country, including those subjected to drone attacks in recent days. He warned of their increasing use against civilians and infrastructure. Fletcher described seeing many drones during his visit, including an incident in which he and his team had to run for cover because they were in the vicinity.
Drones are increasingly prevalent in areas with ongoing crises, like Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan and Somalia. These weapons, which are controlled by humans but can also be directed by AI, have shaped the way civilians lead their lives and affected humanitarians carry out their work.
They create “a sense of collective anxiety” among civilians and aid workers. Yet, there seems to be little to no impunity for drone attacks or for those who carry out these attacks, who would likely be aware of what they are targeting. Drone technology is also getting cheaper and easier to access, putting them in more hands as parties to conflict experiment with their use.
Fletcher acknowledged that they can be used by aid workers for good, such as delivering vaccines or identifying survivors in emergencies. But otherwise, much of their use in the context of conflict has been “inhumane and reckless”.
“I’ve not been anywhere where drones are so much part of the conversation. Everyone – from the kids I met in shelters, civilians, humanitarians, and my colleagues – can tell the difference between the sound of a first-person-view drone and a fibre-optic drone and the medium-range drones or the loitering munitions, which are such a threat to our work,” Fletcher said.
Fletcher called for the international community, and chiefly Member States, to uphold international humanitarian law and to seek accountability toward the parties involved in conflict, including state actors. Member states can and should take stronger measures to conduct independent investigations.
Fletcher made repeated calls for increased dialogue and reflection on international humanitarian law, including how to protect humanitarian workers from emerging technologies like drones. It should be up to member states and the companies behind these technologies to make sure that it “does not outpace humanity” and it “does not outpace accountability”. He also called for engaging in dialogue with the companies involved in manufacturing and distributing drones so they understand the risks they’re creating.
For those that believe in the United Nations or in the spirit of global solidarity, they also believe that member states still have the will to uphold their responsibilities toward international humanitarian law. “If the world has become so transactional and selfish and inward-looking that member states are no longer able or prepared to do this work, then we really are in a grim dystopian reality,” Fletcher told Inter Press Service.
He added that the public can in turn hold their governments to account. “We need a public demand of their leaders that we manage these risks before it’s too late. And for so many of the people that I work with, my fallen colleagues, for so many of the people who we’re here to serve, it is already too late, I’m afraid.”
IPS UN Bureau Report
ROME, Aug 20 2026 (IPS) - FIVE years after the Taliban returned to power, Fawzia Koofi, the former Deputy Speaker of the Afghan Parliament, denounces what she describes as “gender apartheid.”
Despite bans, terror, and the systematic erasure of women from society, Afghan women continue to resist through underground schools and online solidarity networks.
Koofi was also a member of the official delegation that represented the Afghan government during the 2020 peace negotiations with the Taliban in Doha, Qatar.
Since the fall of Kabul, she has been living in Europe after being evacuated from Afghanistan, where she continues to advocate for Afghan women and campaign for political alternatives to Taliban rule. Speaking with IPS, Koofi explains how the Taliban have systematically erased women from public life while describing the resilience and determination of Afghan women to continue resisting.
IPS: Three years after their return to power, the Taliban have gradually stripped women of all their rights. Today you describe the situation as genuine gender apartheid. How would you describe the condition of Afghan women?
Fawzia Koofi: Women have gradually lost their rights as the Taliban imposed increasingly restrictive measures through a series of decrees. In 2021, girls were banned from attending secondary school. Then, in 2022, women were barred from universities. In 2024, they were no longer allowed to study medicine, not even gynaecology.
Today, every field of education is closed to them. Compared with the first Taliban regime, the current restrictions are even harsher. Yet Afghan women continue to resist because they know education is essential, and their families understand that it is vital. They attend classes in clandestine home-based schools.
Most of these home schools are run by NGOs that pay teachers’ salaries and sometimes even cover students’ internet connection costs. They also provide online English and computer courses. These schools do not issue diplomas. Nevertheless, students receive an education that sometimes enables them to start an online business, pursue distance learning while remaining underground, or teach other young girls.
IPS: How do these underground schools operate, and how do women manage to escape repression?
Koofi: Officially, these schools do not exist; they are not registered. As a result, whenever the Taliban discover them, they can arrest the teachers, students, or those responsible for running them. That is exactly what happened to one of the networks I helped establish, for example, in Ghor Province, in central-western Afghanistan, and also in Badakhshan, in the country’s northeast. They raided the schools and arrested the staff. In other cases, however, they may be more lenient when members of their families attend these schools.
The curriculum focuses on science, computer skills, and English to help women and girls obtain scholarships, work online, or run online businesses. Some women who manage to build small businesses personally take charge of marketing in an effort to expand their activities. Unfortunately, without diplomas or accreditation, professional opportunities remain extremely limited for most women.
Many Afghan women living in exile devote a large part of their time to providing online education for women inside Afghanistan. We connect them with university students and try to teach them English or other languages. It is regrettable that Western governments repeatedly promise to defend women’s rights while failing to provide the funding or scholarships that would allow Afghan women to continue their studies abroad, return home one day, and help rebuild their country. The Taliban’s declared objective is to erase women from Afghan society in the name of Islamic morality.
IPS: Why do you use the term gender apartheid?
Koofi: Because, little by little, women have been completely erased from public life. Some women tell me that when they walk through the streets of Kabul and encounter Taliban officials or soldiers, they are often looked at as though they were criminals.
They are told: “You are not allowed to work or attend university, so why are you out in the street?”
That is precisely the principle of apartheid: separating a gender or a group of people on the basis of their sex, race, or religion and excluding them from society. That is exactly what the Taliban are doing.
The silence of the international community is deeply regrettable. Some governments occasionally condemn the Taliban system, but that is where it ends.
Even worse, they adopt the same kind of practices.
The United Kingdom, for instance, continues to say, “We support Afghan women,” while refusing to grant student visas for fear that applicants might later seek political asylum. It makes no sense. How many of them would actually do so? Two hundred students? In a situation where they can neither study nor work in their own country, it should not be considered a problem if they apply for asylum.
All these contradictions, together with the international community’s lack of action, only encourage and strengthen the Taliban, who interpret this as a form of recognition and legitimacy.
Many experts say that women are disappearing from public space in Afghanistan. Do you agree with that assessment?
Koofi: Imagine the reality faced by women living there today, who are not even allowed to leave their homes freely. Take humanitarian aid distribution as an example.
In many regions, aid distribution is controlled by the Taliban with the assistance of the local councils they have appointed. Beneficiaries are selected from among relatives or supporters.
Single women, such as war widows with dependent children, or women who lost their jobs under Taliban rule, are excluded from receiving aid. And when they protest, the local council members appointed by the Taliban report them, and they are arrested.
There have been cases of sexual violence in Taliban prisons.
The Taliban have locked down the entire system by systematically controlling the country and all its institutions. If local council members rebel or fail to cooperate sufficiently, they are simply replaced. That is how the system functions.
Yet women continue to resist and to protest in order to survive, although it is far from easy. Some open beauty salons or small shops inside their homes. A few television channels that have reached agreements with the Taliban and comply with censorship are still allowed to employ women, but they are required to wear face masks while on air. In effect, they have become spokespersons for the Taliban, who tightly control the news that they broadcast.
Are there still any spaces where women can enjoy some degree of freedom?
They are becoming increasingly rare. Last month in Herat, in western Afghanistan, the Taliban arrested more than 60 women who were not wearing the burqa but instead a large headscarf in keeping with local tradition. Their families and other women protested, and for once, men also took to the streets. The Taliban responded by opening fire. To them, human life has very little value. They arrest, imprison, torture, and kill.
On April 28, they arrested three members of my family as well as one of our gardeners. They then confiscated my house. My relatives were held in solitary confinement for a week and tortured. We managed to mobilise social media, and my family was eventually released. All this simply because I am able to speak to the media and communicate with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Kabul.
In most cases, however, families do not even know where their loved ones are being held. They can disappear for months. The media do not report these cases because they are controlled by the Taliban. This is the reality for everyone. Women continue to write and to protest through social media, each in their own way.
Do you feel that the world has forgotten Afghanistan and Afghan women?
Yes. The world paved the way for the Taliban’s return.
Let us remember the Doha Agreement signed between the Taliban and the United States, which says absolutely nothing about the condition of women or about human rights in general. A
ll of this encouraged the Taliban.
I took part in those negotiations, and the Taliban told me that women’s rights were not among the priorities of my American and European friends. Unfortunately, they were right.
Now the European Union has invited the Taliban to negotiate the return of Afghans living abroad irregularly or individuals considered to pose a security threat. This approach is rather strange and paradoxical because as long as conditions in Afghanistan do not improve, people will continue to want to leave.
Everyone living in the country wants to leave. I speak by telephone every day with Afghans, and every one of them tells me they want to leave. Without work, without education, and without freedom, there is no dignity.
It is absurd. The European Union is engaging with the Taliban, who will simply exploit these negotiations for their benefit.
The attention of Western countries, and indeed of the world as a whole, is focused on other major conflicts. I believe this is a mistake because, sooner or later, Afghanistan will become a rear base for several violent extremist groups.
The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the Islamic State (ISIS), and Al-Qaeda remain highly active in the region. In fact, Al-Qaeda’s leader was killed only two kilometres from the Taliban presidential palace in July 2022.
To claim that the Taliban will effectively fight these groups while allowing them to govern the country is, in my view, sheer hypocrisy. The world must act before it is too late. We are not asking for NATO troops to return. Rather, we are asking governments not to encourage or support the Taliban.
Unfortunately, I have the feeling that human rights — and women’s rights in particular — are simply not considered a strategic issue or a priority. That is the reality.
IPS UN Bureau Report
Aug 19 2026 (IPS) - Weeks have gone by since the World Cup ended. Its aftermath has sparked a broader conversation about who football’s biggest tournament belongs to and how it should look in 2030. One postscript to that conversation comes from Mexico.
In a country with more than 100,000 people registered as disappeared, families searching for their loved ones confronted an unusual question: how do you participate in a national celebration while carrying the grief of a missing loved one?
While fans immersed themselves in 104 matches and the outcome for the teams they were cheering for, the answer by the civilian search collectives, who come together to find missing relatives amid state inaction and often face considerable risks, was disarmingly bold: neither to ignore the tournament nor reject it, but to claim a place in it.
In a country where football pitches can be found from volcanoes to fields of Mexican agave plants, they carved out a pitch of their own in the country’s most emblematic avenue. And then they played football.
Around 9 a.m., the chalk lines for another pitch began to appear on the asphalt of Paseo de la Reforma in Mexico City. It was Mexico’s final day as a World Cup host. Sixteen kilometers north of the Azteca Stadium, the “Glorieta de los Desaparecidos,” a roundabout reclaimed by families as a memorial in 2022, was preparing for another game. These were among the pickup games that collectives organized as spaces of remembrance during the tournament. Pickup games took place the days Mexico was playing.
In a country with more than 100,000 people registered as disappeared, families searching for their loved ones confronted an unusual question: how do you participate in a national celebration while carrying the grief of a missing loved one?
The games followed a simple script: small teams of three to five faced off until they reached a set number of goals. Some were part of the collectives; others –including football fans– were passersby who joined. Some became regulars; children particularly. In that convergence, football became a vehicle for telling stories of absence.
“Preparations started one year before the initial kick-in,” Jorge Verástegui, one of the initiative’s organizers, told me.
His brother and nephew, Antonio and Antonio de Jesús, disappeared in the northern state of Coahuila in January 2009, when the Zetas cartel dominated much of the region.
“We were coming from a very frustrating year of dialogues with the government, so many of us, searching for our loved ones, asked how to engage with a World Cup taking place in Mexico,” he said, wearing a Mexican national team jersey emblazoned with a large picture of his brother. Organizers distributed over 300 similar jerseys, so families could add photos of their missing loved ones. Search collectives joined from across the country.
For César Contreras, a lawyer at Centro Prodh, a human rights group that has represented families for decades, football became a way “to collectivize joy but also reflect on how we got here.” The interventions wanted to challenge the stigma of disappearances as a “sad topic that nobody wants to hear about.”
When children joined, one father told Contreras he would later explain to his son who he had been playing with.
Supporters created the “Ajolote Buscador” a reworking of the salamander that is the city mascot, that became a regular presence at the pickup games. In Guadalajara, another Ajolote denounced the lack of resources for identification.
Mobilization was not without backlash from government authorities. U.N. experts raised concerns about restrictions faced by families while trying to make their voices heard. And violence against those seeking answers or accountability continued. During the World Cup, two searchers were killed, one in Guanajuato and another in Sinaloa.
Yet, as Andrea Horcasitas, one researcher who has worked alongside search collectives put it, “in a context marked by exclusion from the city and restricted access, collectives sent a message of belonging: this celebration is also ours, and here we are,”
Among the families who joined the pitches were Javier Barajas and María del Tránsito Piña, teachers who were originally from Guanajuato.
Their daughter, Guadalupe, disappeared in Salvatierra in February 2020. Her brother, Francisco Javier, joined the local search commission and helped locate her remains in one of Mexico’s largest mass graves. Three months later, he was killed. Investigations linked both crimes to the same criminal group. Their parents were later displaced from their home state.
Football was a family ritual, their mother told me. Francisco Javier and his mother watched matches together, while Javier and Guadalupe prepared the snacks.
“Now, I can’t watch football. It’s just too painful,” she said.
Yet the couple eventually found their way to the pitches. Barajas played several matches as a tribute to his son and daughter. For his wife, the pickup games offered a distinct space: “I can feel them when I wear that jersey with their photos.”
The resistance to FIFA’s commercialization projects is a reminder that we ultimately cherish these tournaments because of the stories they leave behind. Mexico’s search collectives offer one of them.
For the families, the work continues. Ensuring their security remains an urgent task, particularly in places where lethal violence against them concentrates. So does advancing investigations grounded in local realities and reducing the backlog in forensic identification.
Their message still resounds: this tournament was also theirs, because their stories are part of Mexico.
Jorge Peniche is a senior Americas researcher at Human Rights Watch.