Italy wants to spearhead efforts to help Afghan women defend their rights "at one of the most difficult times in their country's history", foreign minister Luigi Di Maio said on Tuesday.
"Italy wants to lead in supporting Afghan women at one of the most difficult times in their country's history," Di Maio wrote on Facebook after chairing a virtual ministerial meeting in New York.
"The news coming from Afghanistan on the Taliban's measures against women concerns us greatly. For this reason, we must safeguard the results achieved over the last 20 years," Di Maio went on.
Participants at Tuesday's meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, and whose organisers included Italy, agreed to work towards three goals, Di Maio said.
"First, all humanitarian action should include specific measures for the protection of the rights of Afghan women and girls; second, an international mechanism to monitor the human rights situation and hold to account rights violations and abuses in Afghanistan; and third, to support activists and journalists inside and outside the country."
The international community has "a shared responsibility" to "defend and support females in Afghanistan, Di Maio stated.
"These brave women risk violence every day, discrimination and intimidation," he wrote.
"This is the commitment that Italy, other countries and international organizations put at the top of the agenda for Afghanistan, he underlined.
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