In 2024, the Taliban government in Kabul wrote to the Australian government to request the Afghan embassy in Canberra be closed.
- PhD Candidate, International Relations, Australian National University
Afghan women are turning to social media, singing in protest against new Taliban laws banning their voices in public. They sing to prove they still exist.
The Afghans is powerful account of the rise of the Taliban, told through the lives of three very different people.
Some 189,000 Afghans have applied for visas to Australia, but the government has only approved 31,500 refugee spots for the next four years. Women face the biggest hurdles to resettlement.
The sheer volume of pregnant women in the refugee camps was an early indicator of the extent sexual violence was used against Rohingya women and girls.
The US is negotiating a peace agreement with the Taliban, so it can safely withdraw its troops. But how can peace last in Afghanistan if women aren’t at the negotiating table?
The US has sent troops to countries neighbouring the Democratic Republic of Congo in anticipation of violence and unrest once the election results are announced.
Talks should include barriers to women’s participation in peace and security institutions, countering violent extremism, foreign fighters, sexual violence in conflict, and the Rohingya crisis.
As foreign Islamic State fighters return home, there needs to be proper prosecution of sexual violence in armed conflict.
More needs to be done to protect women against sexual violence perpetrated in war.
There were seven highly regarded and qualified women who could have been selected as the next UN secretary-general. So why did the job go to another man?
Women and girls living in Syria and Iraq have been subject to gross sexual violence, economic strife and the psychological trauma of a war that, to them, seems endless. But women in these countries are…
Contact Susan for
- General
- Media request
- Speaking request
- Consulting / Advising
- Research collaboration
- Location: Canberra, ACT
- X (formerly Twitter): @SusansOpine
- Article Feed
- Joined
