Foreign Ministry will host the HearUs Afghan Women’s Conference on December 12th

The Diplomat The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, in collaboration with the organization Women For Afghanistan, will host the HearUs 2025 Afghan Women's Summit on December 12th in Madrid. This summit is a collaborative networking platform designed to address the needs of Afghan women who have migrated to Europe and those who remain in Afghanistan. Under the title "Coordinating Actions for Accountability in Afghanistan: A Path Towards Creating a Roadmap," this high-level meeting builds upon the outcomes of the HearUs 2024 conference in Madrid, as well as the "All Afghan Women Summit" held in Tirana. The conference will bring together a wide range of Afghan human rights activists and defenders, both men and women, Afghan survivors, global experts, prominent women leaders, special envoys for Afghan affairs, ambassadors for feminist and gender equality foreign policy from partner countries, UN representatives, and leading civil society organizations. It will promote a comprehensive approach to justice and accountability for Afghan women and girls. According to the Ministry, the conference aims to establish a shared and practical roadmap for justice, accountability, and the long-term protection of the human rights of Afghan women and girls through international legal mechanisms. “HearUs 2025 will serve as a platform for coordinated and action-oriented engagement, reaffirming the international community’s commitment to justice, equality, and the empowerment of Afghan women and girls,” the press release continued. Spain has joined other countries, such as Albania, Chile, Finland, Luxembourg, and Morocco, in calling for the Taliban to be brought before international justice and has supported the accountability initiative adopted by Australia, Canada, Germany, and the Netherlands, which have taken formal steps to demand that Afghanistan cease its violations of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), to which Afghanistan is a State Party, under Article 29. Such violations could lead to the International Court of Justice taking action against the country. At the end of November 2024, Spain, Chile, Costa Rica, France, Luxembourg, and Mexico referred the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, requesting that it include in its investigation into the situation in Afghanistan the crimes against women and girls committed since the Taliban took power in 2021. Last October, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, José Manuel Albares, announced that Spain will host the fifth Feminist Foreign Policy Conference in 2026 and explained (during the fourth Conference on Feminist Diplomacy organized by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris) some of the actions undertaken by Spain in this area, such as welcoming and providing refuge to Afghan women persecuted by the Taliban regime and promoting women's political participation through political dialogue platforms like HearUs.

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