Hollywood legend Meryl Streep has spoken out against the injustices women in Afghanistan are facing under the Taliban’s repressive regime.
The three-time Oscar winning actor made a speech at an event on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly this week, where she said that animals had more freedom than Afghan women and girls.
“Today in Kabul a female cat has more freedom than a woman,” she said. “A cat may go sit on her front stoop and feel the sun on her face, she may chase a squirrel in the park.”
“A squirrel has more rights than a girl in Afghanistan today because the public parks have been closed to women and girls by the Taliban. A bird may sing in Kabul, but a girl may not in public. This is extraordinary. This is a suppression of the natural law.”
“The way that this culture, this society has been upended, is a cautionary tale for the rest of the world,” Streep added, calling on world leaders to “stop the slow suffocation” of Afghan women and girls.
In response to Streep’s remarks, a Taliban spokesman said “none can deny women the rights which Islam has given them”.
“We highly respect them in their role as mother, sister, wife,” Suhail Shaheen, the head of the Taliban’s political office, told the BBC. “They are [an] essential part of [the] family and society but we never compare them to cats.”
Streep was speaking alongside Afghan activists and human rights defenders at the “The Inclusion of Women in the Future of Afghanistan” meeting to raise awareness of Afghan women’s rights at the UN headquarters in New York.
Streep was joined by numerous key leaders working to urge the UN to protect and restore the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, including Asila Wardak, leader of the Women’s Forum on Afghanistan, Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Rosemary DiCarlo, Habiba Sarabi, former Minister for Women’s Affairs and Fawziya Koofi, former Deputy Speaker of Parliament.
Streep admitted that she was “waving the celebrity flag” to bring awareness to the plight of Afghanistan’s women. She also threw her weight behind Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, saying “That’s what is great about Kamala Harris — she consults experts in order to make the right decisions about foreign policy.”
Asila Wardak said that the reality being imposed on women in Afghanistan is not an isolated issue concerning the country alone, but part of the “global fight against extremism”.
“In Afghanistan, the level of extremism that is growing will not remain only [in the country] but soon it will go into the neighbouring countries and also to the world,” Wardak said. “This is a giant responsibility and it should be a giant fight.”
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres was also at the event, saying that Afghanistan “will never take its rightful place on the global stage” until women are educated and have access to paid employment.
“In Afghanistan, laws are being used to lock in the systematic oppression of women and girls,” he said.
“They are even banned from singing or raising their voices in public. This law is the latest in a series of edicts and decrees that strip Afghan women and girls of their rights and freedoms across all areas of life.”
His comments come after the Taliban government introduced a new set of “morality laws” last month, making it illegal for women to speak in public. Under the law, women can also be punished if they are heard singing or reading aloud from within their homes.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban has enacted more than 100 edicts, orders and directives restricting the rights of women and girls. These apply in a range of jurisdictions – nationally, provincially and in specific districts.
