The international community must be "intransigent" in upholding women's and girls' rights in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, Italy's foreign minister Luigi Di Maio stated on Monday.
"We must be intransigent on safeguarding the rights of Afghan women and girls and their access to education," Di Maio wrote on Facebook, presenting an event on Afghanistan organised on the sidelines of the 76th UN General Assembly in New York.
"This is also be because the news in recent days has not been at all encouraging," Di Maio added.
Fears over female rights under Taliban rule are rising after the Islamist militants closed the Afghan Women's Affairs Ministry. Primary schoolchildren in Kabul have returned to class with gender-segregated rooms, while older girls wait to learn if they can attend secondary-school.
