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      Abortion on the Ballot: ‘Remember, You Are Alone in the Voting Booth’

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      More from our inbox:The Supreme Court Ruling About a Gerrymandered MapTalks in the Russia-Ukraine War‘Stolen’ Election? Prove It.Time for a New Constitutional Convention?To the Editor:I am a 41-year-old white, upper-class, single, childless professional, a Midwestern Republican and a practicing Catholic woman. I am disgusted by the overturning of Roe v. Wade.This does not match my conservative values of smaller government and fiscal conservatism. Practically, why is it a government matter to ensure the completion of truly unwanted and/or dangerous pregnancies?Personally, I have seen the toll of abortion on friends and relatives. Reasons I’ve seen for having one include date rape, accidental pregnancies, irresponsible lack of birth control and unviable pregnancies. No one took the decision lightly or evaded the psychological impact of the actual event.Women across their lifetimes deal with everyone else’s interest in and opinion of their bodies. We also deal with managing access to our bodies in ways I do not think most men can understand. Men who want to put part of their bodies inside ours. Doctors who probe inside. Lives that grow inside and can cause serious injury and death in the process.It’s a lot to manage. I suggest we leave each person to their own management, in a truly Republican way.Emily SmithSt. LouisTo the Editor:When my son was born, I had an overpowering feeling of love. I couldn’t imagine loving anyone more than I loved him. Giving birth and having a child are what I cherish most about my life. Every child deserves to be wanted and be the recipient of that powerful love.I am a pro-choice Democrat. I am also pro-life. And by pro-life I don’t mean the pro-fetus, anti-abortion view of the conservative, religious right. To me pro-life means ensuring that women have prenatal care and adequate family leave, and affordable child care. Pro-life means good nutrition, parental jobs that pay a living wage, safe, affordable housing, excellent public education and health care for everyone.It is time for Democrats and all who love children to claim the mantle of “pro-life” as ours and to recognize that anti-abortionists care only about the delivery of a fetus no matter how it was conceived and whether is it born alive or dead. We must restore women’s bodily autonomy and right to choose when and how to have a child.Nancy H. HenselLaguna Woods, Calif.To the Editor:Those Americans celebrating our nation’s reactionary lurch back to the dark days of government control over women’s bodies are, no doubt, deeply grateful to the millions of self-described progressive and/or Democratic Party-aligned voters who in 2016 opted not to cast a vote at all rather than to vote for Hillary Clinton.Without the help of those anti-Clinton members of the electorate, it’s highly unlikely the radical right could have fulfilled its dream of creating a top court controlled by overtly activist justices who now, one decision at a time, are ensuring that the politics of white privilege and patriarchal thinking reign supreme.The End of Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s decision to end ​​the constitutional right to abortion.Michelle Goldberg: “In the aftermath of the anti-abortion movement’s catastrophic victory, it’s worth asking what we can learn from their tactics.”Maureen Dowd: “The court is out of control. We feel powerless to do anything about it. Clarence Thomas, of all people, has helped lead us to where we are.”Peter Coy: “People on the losing end of Supreme Court decisions increasingly feel that justice is not being served. That’s a scary situation for American democracy.”Jamelle Bouie: “The power to check the Supreme Court is there, in the Constitution. The task now is to seize it.”Michele Goodwin, law professor: “The overturning of Roe v. Wade reveals the Supreme Court’s neglectful reading of the amendments that abolished slavery.”It’s a stark reminder that polls indicating that a majority of voters continue to favor a woman’s right to choose are meaningless if lots of those same voters choose not to vote.Andy ParkerPortland, Ore.To the Editor:At this tragic time for women’s rights, I remember a letter to the editor, in this very paper, that was written 30 years ago. We were at the crux of a significant presidential election, in which several Supreme Court seats were potentially at stake.The writer of that letter took the liberty of doctoring a quote from Julia Child, who was a known ardent supporter of Planned Parenthood. On one of her cooking shows, Julia accidentally flipped food out of the pan and onto the floor.As she picked it up from the floor and tossed it back into the pan, she looked into the camera and said, “Always remember: If you’re alone in the kitchen and you drop the lamb, you can always just pick it up. Who’s going to know?”The writer of that letter reminded women, “Remember, you are alone in the voting booth.”As we fight to get our rights back, I hope that women, regardless of their political party, will remember that advice this November.Katrina SabaOakland, Calif.The Supreme Court Ruling About a Gerrymandered Map Adriana Zehbrauskas for The New York TimesTo the Editor:Re “Justices Revive G.O.P.-Drawn Map in Louisiana” (news article, June 29):The Supreme Court’s reinstatement of the highly partisan gerrymandered voting map by the Louisiana Legislature simply highlights the politicization of the six conservative justices and the court’s continued decline of legitimacy in the public eye.The trial court found that the Republican-drawn map diluted Black voters’ rights and required the Louisiana Legislature to redraw the map for the coming November election. The six justices arbitrarily blocked the trial court’s order without giving any reason.Although overshadowed by the abortion, gun permit and church-state cases, this result-oriented order simply reinforces the public’s skepticism of the court’s partisan bent. So much for the Republicans’ historic denunciation of “activist judges.”Ken GoldmanBeverly Hills, Calif.The writer is a lawyer.Talks in the Russia-Ukraine WarTo the Editor:According to the NATO secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, the conflict in Ukraine appears likely to last for some time. In recent days, though, leading voices in Europe, those who want Russia pushed back and punished as well as those who want the war to end quickly, have expressed serious interest in talks.Negotiation may be more promising if the focus shifts from a final resolution of the protracted conflict to an interim plan with these initial objectives: (a) to cease the fighting and (b) to consider occupied territory “neutral,” and under a protectorate, until a complete resolution can be determined.Implementing these steps will take some doing, but each, in some form, is essential to limit human suffering, physical damage and economic loss as well as to establish and support a forum for negotiations, one in which “the interests” of the nations, rather than their “positions,” frame the discussions.This approach allows neither side to claim a victory. They can, however, commit to work for a peaceful Europe, as essential for Ukraine and Russia as for the stability, and prosperity, of the world.Linda StamatoSanford M. JaffeMorristown, N.J.The writers are co-directors of the Center for Negotiation and Conflict Resolution at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy, Rutgers University.‘Stolen’ Election? Prove It.To the Editor:The House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol has methodically laid out a compelling, fact-based argument as to what happened that day, and why.I am still awaiting the same from those who believe that the 2020 election was “stolen.” What is their case? Where are their facts? Instead of a disciplined, marshaled argument, I hear only shrieks, shouts and hyperbole.I am reminded of President Lincoln’s observation in the midst of a similar hysteria: “Passion has helped us; but can do so no more. It will in future be our enemy. Reason, cold, calculating, unimpassioned reason, must furnish all the materials for our future support and defence.”As a nation, this must be our watchword moving forward.Philip TaftHopewell, N.J.Time for a New Constitutional Convention?To the Editor:Many of us are frustrated that the institutions we look to for guiding our democracy are not working: a Supreme Court that interprets law as written hundreds of years ago; a Senate and a House often mired in gridlock; an executive branch that has suffered a near coup from partisans chanting false information about election fraud.Clearly something is not working, and we the people need to be the adults in the room to provide guidance.Perhaps it’s time for a new constitutional convention to update the contract between the people and our government so it works for all of us again.Richard M. SchubertPortland, Ore. More

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      Pennsylvania Governor’s Race Takes on Huge Stakes for Abortion Rights

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      Now that the Supreme Court has struck down Roe v. Wade, the most important election this year in America when it comes to abortion will be the contest for governor of Pennsylvania.Josh Shapiro, the state’s Democratic attorney general, is facing off against Doug Mastriano, a Republican state senator who has vowed to make abortion illegal. If Mr. Mastriano wins, the Republican-controlled Pennsylvania legislature is all but certain to move to undo the state’s existing law allowing abortion.“Roe v. Wade is rightly relegated to the ash heap of history,” Mr. Mastriano said on Friday. “As the abortion debate returns to the states, Pennsylvania must be prepared to lead the nation in being a voice for the voiceless.”Mr. Shapiro denounced the ruling. “The stakes in this governor’s race could not be more clear,” he said. “The contrast between me and my dangerous opponent could not be greater.”Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania attorney general and Democratic nominee for governor, has pledged to protect abortion rights.Jeff Swensen for The New York TimesNowhere else is a governor’s race so pivotal. In Wisconsin, where the Republican-led Legislature has battled with Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who is seeking re-election, a pre-Roe law forbidding abortion automatically went back into effect after Friday’s decision. Mr. Evers has pledged to fight for abortion rights, but he faces a wall of opposition from Republican state legislators.This week, Mr. Evers ordered Wisconsin’s lawmakers to the State Capitol in Madison for a special session meant to reverse an 1849 law outlawing abortion. Republicans ended the session on Wednesday without taking action.In Michigan, Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has backed a series of creative legal arguments to block the state’s 1931 law outlawing abortion from taking effect. In May, a state judge ruled that the law would not immediately go into effect after an eventual Supreme Court ruling on Roe.Ms. Whitmer has also supported an effort to place a referendum on the November ballot to enshrine abortion rights in Michigan’s Constitution.Three other states will have questions about abortion decided directly by voters in November.Kansas and Kentucky have referendums asking voters to affirm that their state constitutions do not guarantee a right to abortion. In Vermont, the ballot will contain a question that would enshrine a person’s right to control their own reproductive choices in the state’s Constitution.Gov. Laura Kelly of Kansas, a Democrat who supports abortion rights, faces a difficult re-election bid. Her likely Republican opponent, Derek Schmidt, the state’s attorney general, opposes abortion rights.After Friday’s ruling, Republican governors praised the decision and sought to press the party’s advantage. In Virginia, Gov. Glenn Youngkin said Friday that he would seek a ban on abortion after 15 weeks — though such a move is unlikely to be successful given that Democrats control the State Senate.“Virginians want fewer abortions, not more abortions,” Mr. Youngkin said. “We can build a bipartisan consensus on protecting the life of unborn children.”Virginia’s next round of state legislature elections won’t take place until 2023; Mr. Youngkin, who took office in January, is prohibited from seeking a second consecutive term.Gov. Phil Bryant of Mississippi, a Republican whose state capital was the origin of Friday’s Supreme Court case, said state lawmakers would exercise a “moral duty to protect life at all stages.”“The pro-life movement also understands that our fight is just beginning,” Mr. Bryant said. “In the coming days, our efforts to assert the full dignity of every human life will become more important.”Some Republicans minimized the significance of the ruling even as they cheered it. Mr. Mastriano, speaking in Binghamton, N.Y., where he appeared alongside and endorsed Andrew Giuliani in New York’s Republican primary for governor, called the political furor a distraction.“Sadly, the other side wants to distract us about, you know, Jan. 6,” said Mr. Mastriano, who chartered buses for his supporters to attend the rally that led to the Capitol attack. “Or they want to distract us about Covid. Or distract us about, you know, Roe v. Wade.”Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois called on the state’s Democratic-led General Assembly to convene a special session to protect abortion rights.Jamie Kelter Davis for The New York TimesDemocratic governors cast the Supreme Court’s decision as a catastrophic move — and the first step toward a broader rollback of women’s rights.Gov. J.B. Pritzker of Illinois said he had pressed President Biden during his recent visit to Chicago to be more forceful in defending abortion rights. He said Illinois, which is surrounded by states where abortion is illegal or is likely to be outlawed soon, had “a special obligation” to make abortion accessible not just to its citizens but also to visitors.“We’re an island in the Midwest, in the country, all around us are anti-choice legislatures and state laws and governors,” Mr. Pritzker said in an interview on Friday. “The only thing that will allow us to reverse the terrible direction things are going is electing pro-choice Democratic governors, pro-choice Democratic legislators.”Democratic candidates for governor in states with Republican-controlled legislatures like Georgia, Arizona and Texas said they would fight for abortion rights if elected — though in practice there is little they could do toward that goal given Republican opposition.“I will work with the legislature to reverse the draconian law that will now rule our state,” said Stacey Abrams, the Democrat running for governor of Georgia.Neil Vigdor More

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      Turning Pregnant Women and Doctors Into Criminals

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      More from our inbox:A Piercing Inquiry Into the History of Haiti’s PlightA Self-Fulfilling Election Prophecy? Ben HickeyTo the Editor:In “Punishing Women Who Have Abortions” (Opinion, Sunday Review, May 15), Jane Coaston mentions the possibility being discussed in some anti-abortion circles of charging those who have abortions with homicide. There is another way some in the anti-abortion camp speak of punishing women who seek abortions, in this case very ill women — letting them die.This is not a majority position in the anti-abortion movement, but it is not a new idea. In 1984, Paul Weyrich, an influential conservative activist, stated, in explaining his opposition to exceptions to abortion bans in cases of threats to a woman’s life: “I believe that if you have to choose between new life and existing life, you should choose new life. The person who has had an opportunity to live at least has been given that gift by God and should make way for new life on earth.”In the likely event that the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade and about half the states ban abortion, it is in the realm of possibility that extremist politicians in some of these states will be successful in blocking any exceptions whatsoever. Doctors in those states will be placed in a horrible position, facing years of jail time if they abort the fetus, and women will die needlessly.Carole JoffeSan FranciscoThe writer is a professor of obstetrics, gynecology and reproductive sciences at the University of California, San Francisco.To the Editor:An important problem in criminalizing abortion is frequently overlooked: policing it.New York County abortion trial transcripts in the John Jay College of Criminal Justice archives (1883-1927) show that because illegal abortions invariably took place in private locations — usually the home of the doctor or midwife who performed the abortion — the authorities had to rely on unsavory detection methods.These included threatening the hospitalized victims of botched abortions with arrest unless they named and testified against their abortion providers; making deals for leniency with pregnant women arrested for unrelated crimes if they agreed to help entrap a suspected abortion provider; and setting up elaborate sting operations with women employed by the police.Even with the more sophisticated surveillance methods available today, law enforcement personnel will often be obliged to rely on entrapment to prosecute abortion providers in states where abortion is illegal. The surprising number of acquittals in the historic abortion cases I have studied suggest that entrapment can be distasteful to jurors. Entrapment methods may also have a demoralizing, demeaning and potentially corrupting effect on the police.Elisabeth GitterNew YorkThe writer is emerita professor of English and interdisciplinary studies at John Jay College of Criminal Justice.To the Editor:I’d like to see an article about “How Will We Punish Men Who Don’t Support Women Who Have the Pregnancies.” We are still focused on the women, but now we have the technologies to identify the fathers and expect them to fully support the children they conceive. Would this change the dynamics of pregnancy, abortions and support? You bet it would.Janice WoychikChapel Hill, N.C.A Piercing Inquiry Into the History of Haiti’s PlightAn illustration depicting plantations burning in 1791, during the Haitian Revolution.Universal Images Group, via Getty ImagesTo the Editor:Your comprehensive May 22 special section on Haiti, “The Ransom,” was eye-opening. It showed that debt is a tool of the rich comparable to slavery — and has been throughout history.But the special section, sadly, also shows the limits of talking about reparations as justice. Even if the French government paid Haiti back all that it took, with interest, the resulting payment would scarcely account for the lost opportunities and social dislocations caused by its aggression.Andrew OramArlington, Mass.To the Editor:When I arrived in Haiti for the first time, in 1996, I had already been in a number of poverty-stricken countries in this hemisphere. There were similarities, of course, but the depth and pervasiveness of impoverishment and the unreliability or absence of the most basic physical and governmental infrastructure were on a scale I had not previously encountered.It was not surprising that Haitians felt that they had little control over their lives — lives spent in surviving day to day.How did it come to this? Your series “The Ransom” provides well-researched, convincing answers to that question.George Santayana warned that “those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” We cannot heed that warning if that past is not known to begin with. Now that the reality of that Haitian history is more widely known, will it continue to be repeated?John CosgroveLumberton, N.J.The writer is professor emeritus in the Graduate School of Social Service at Fordham University.A Self-Fulfilling Election Prophecy?To the Editor:Current reporting from many Democratic and Republican pundits presumes that Republicans will take over the House and the Senate in the November elections. No doubt they base this prediction on polling and the historical results of midterm elections. Perhaps they are right, but perhaps not.While such a prediction serves the Republicans well, for the Democrats, it’s toxic. An attitude of “it’s all over but the voting” has the potential to discourage Democrats from bothering to vote, turning that presumption into a self-fulfilling prophecy.Mary-Lou WeismanWestport, Conn. More

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      How Overturning Roe Could Backfire for Republicans

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      The party was making headway with suburban women on crime, schools and inflation. Now the abortion debate is front and center.ATLANTA — For months, Republicans have been poised to make inroads in the diverse and economically comfortable suburbs of cities like Atlanta. The moderate communities here swung toward Democrats in recent years, led by women appalled by Donald J. Trump. But lately, rampant inflation and rising crime have taken a political toll on President Biden and his party.Sandra Sloan, 82, is the kind of voter Republicans are counting on to help them reclaim this contested section of a newly purple state. Yet Ms. Sloan, a retired high school teacher who lives in Atlanta’s upscale Buckhead neighborhood, is uneasy about the party for one main reason.“I am a Republican, but I still believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose,” Ms. Sloan said.Ms. Sloan said she had followed the news recently about a leaked Supreme Court draft opinion striking down Roe v. Wade, as well as the passage of anti-abortion legislation in states like Texas and Oklahoma. She said she was not sure how she would ultimately vote in the fall, but abortion rights would be a factor.“We still don’t know, after the draft, when it’s finished what it will say,” Ms. Sloan said. “But leaving it to just men — I’m sorry, no.”It is voters like Ms. Sloan, in communities like Buckhead, who may represent the greatest challenge for Republicans in a renewed national debate over the rights of women to legally terminate a pregnancy.“I am a Republican, but I still believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose,” Sandra Sloan, a resident of Atlanta, said.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesShould the Supreme Court strike down Roe in the sweeping manner of Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr.’s draft opinion, it would unleash a ferocious state-by-state battle over abortion regulations — and introduce a powerful new issue into the calculus of voters who might otherwise be inclined to treat the midterm election as an up-or-down vote on Mr. Biden’s performance in the presidency. Moderate women who have tilted back toward the Republicans might now have second thoughts; young people who feel let down by Mr. Biden could well find motivation to vote Democratic out of a feeling of fear and indignation about the Supreme Court.The urgency of the abortion issue could be particularly intense in Georgia, where state lawmakers in 2019 passed a ban on abortion after the sixth week of pregnancy, knowing at the time that existing Supreme Court precedent would forbid the law from going into effect. If that precedent is overturned, then Georgia voters could find themselves living under one of the most restrictive abortion bans in the country.National Democrats have indicated they intend to campaign on the issue ahead of the midterms in November. On Wednesday, Senate Democrats voted to provide a broad guarantee of abortion rights nationwide, though they knew the bill lacked enough support to overcome Republican opposition.Many Republicans, however, are hesitant to discuss abortion outright. On the campaign trail, Republican candidates have been encouraged by party leaders to focus on the economy, crime and the border, according to a memo from the National Republican Senatorial Committee obtained by Axios.From Opinion: A Challenge to Roe v. WadeCommentary by Times Opinion writers and columnists on the Supreme Court’s upcoming decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization.Gail Collins: The push to restrict women’s reproductive rights is about punishing women who want to have sex for pleasure.Jamelle Bouie: The logic of the draft ruling is an argument that could sweep more than just abortion rights out of the circle of constitutional protection.Matthew Walther, Editor of a Catholic Literary Journal: Those who oppose abortion should not discount the possibility that its proscription will have some regrettable consequences. Even so, it will be worth it.Gretchen Whitmer, Governor of Michigan: If Roe falls, abortion will become a felony in Michigan. I have a moral obligation to stand up for the rights of the women of the state I represent.State Senator Jen Jordan, a Democrat running for attorney general of Georgia, said she expected the abortion rights issue to eclipse other concerns as a top consideration for voters.Previously, Ms. Jordan said she had been campaigning on issues related to the cost of living, vowing to crack down on price gouging. The leaked Supreme Court opinion “completely changed the conversation,” she said.“I think fundamental rights is a little bit above the day-to-day economic issues that have been batted around,” Ms. Jordan said.In closely divided states and congressional districts around the country, many moderate voters suddenly find themselves choosing between a Democratic Party that has disappointed them since taking power in 2021, and a Republican Party newly emboldened to enact a right-wing social agenda that makes many voters deeply uneasy.That could create a major challenge for Republicans in their efforts to win back the centrist and center-right communities that shunned them during the Trump years and turned America’s suburbs — from areas near Atlanta and Philadelphia to Minneapolis and Salt Lake City — into at least a temporary political desert for the party. That exodus was particularly pronounced among centrist and even Republican-leaning white women, a constituency that tends to favor abortion rights with modest limitations.Should the Supreme Court strike down Roe v. Wade, it would unleash a ferocious state-by-state battle over abortion regulations.Kenny Holston for The New York TimesChristine Matthews, a pollster who has studied the abortion issue and worked in the past for Republicans, said she expected abortion rights to become a top concern of the 2022 elections. But she said it was too soon to gauge how voters would prioritize abortion rights as an issue relative to other close-to-home considerations, like the cost and availability of consumer goods.“We’ve never been in a situation like this,” Ms. Matthews said, adding, “We are in a situation where abortion rights are now being threatened in a way they haven’t been in nearly 50 years.”Voters, she added, were likely to see six-week abortion bans like Georgia’s as “well outside the mainstream.”National Republicans have attempted to mute the political impact of Roe by urging their candidates to focus on unpopular elements of the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, shifting the focus from the hard-line views of the right and making Democrats defend their opposition to most limits on abortion. In Washington, Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, acknowledged it was possible that Republicans might seek to ban abortion at the federal level but stopped well short of pledging to do so.Some Republicans have been far less guarded about their intentions on abortion regulation. Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia, a conservative Republican who signed the six-week ban, is facing a primary challenge from a former senator, David Perdue, who is demanding that Mr. Kemp call a special session of the state legislature to outlaw abortion altogether.Other swing states have passed strict abortion laws, including a 15-week ban in Arizona, and Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin have introduced a measure to ban the procedure after six weeks. The most extreme restrictions have been proposed in deeply conservative states like Louisiana, where legislators debated a bill that would have classified abortion as a form of homicide, and would have made it possible to bring criminal charges against women who end their pregnancies. Lawmakers scrapped the bill on Thursday before it reached a vote.Many moderate voters find themselves choosing between a Democratic Party that has disappointed them, and a Republican Party newly emboldened to enact a right-wing social agenda that makes many voters uneasy.Nicole Craine for The New York TimesIn Wisconsin, where the offices of an anti-abortion group were set on fire on Sunday, Republicans are defending a Senate seat and seeking to defeat Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat. A crackdown on abortion could alienate some of the moderate voters who would otherwise be reliable Republican votes. The state already has a dormant law, enacted in 1849, that bans abortion in nearly all cases. The current Republican front-runner for governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, has said she totally opposes abortion.Plenty of voters feel more conflicted. Nancy Turtenwald, 64, of West Allis, Wis., an inner-ring suburb of Milwaukee, said she had voted Republican her entire life but also supported abortion rights. Ms. Turtenwald said she would prefer that abortion not be the main issue in the country’s political discourse, citing access to health care, the cost of gas and housing, and the availability of baby formula as more important issues.The State of Roe v. WadeCard 1 of 4What is Roe v. Wade? More

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      Elecciones en Costa Rica: una contienda reñida entre acusaciones de acoso sexual y corrupción

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      En la segunda vuelta, programada para el domingo, los votantes decidirán entre un candidato acusado de acoso sexual en el Banco Mundial y un expresidente que una vez fue acusado de corrupción.SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — Fue degradado de un alto cargo a uno menor en el Banco Mundial por acoso sexual. Ahora, el economista Rodrigo Chaves —quien ha hecho campaña como un populista al margen del sistema político en unas elecciones empañadas por la ira contra los políticos tradicionales— lidera las encuestas para convertirse en el próximo presidente de Costa Rica el domingo.Es un ascenso inesperado a la prominencia en un país que ha asumido un papel de liderazgo en el avance de los derechos sociales en Centroamérica, lo que subraya cómo el deseo de castigar a las élites políticas por lo que consideran respuestas gubernamentales inadecuadas a los desafíos de la región opaca la mayoría de los otros asuntos.En 2019, el Banco Mundial reprendió a Chaves por lo que se demostró que era un patrón de conducta sexual inapropiada contra subalternas, aunque los detalles de su comportamiento solo se hicieron públicos en agosto en un periódico de Costa Rica, información que el candidato presidencial ha refutado en diversas ocasiones.La negación de Chaves y la minimización de un historial documentado de acoso sexual se producen dos años después de que otro político costarricense, el expresidente y premio Nobel de la Paz, Óscar Arias Sánchez, evitara por poco ser procesado por abuso sexual, en un escándalo que sacudió al país.Arias fue acusado en 2019 de agresión sexual o conducta inapropiada por al menos nueve mujeres, emergiendo como uno de los casos más significativos del #MeToo en América Latina. Sin embargo, en diciembre de 2020, se retiraron los cargos presentados contra él por dos de las mujeres.Una protesta contra Óscar Arias Sánchez, premio Nobel de la Paz y expresidente de Costa Rica, quien fue acusado de agresión sexual en 2019.Juan Carlos Ulate/ReutersLos grupos de derechos de género dicen ahora que la apuesta de Chaves por el poder amenaza con socavar el progreso en la nación más liberal e igualitaria de Centroamérica.“El mensaje que están mandando a la sociedad es que el abuso sexual es algo menor, no es algo grave”, dijo Larissa Arroyo, una abogada de derechos humanos costarricense. “Esta campaña está normalizando y legitimando el abuso”.Chaves y su oficina de prensa no respondieron a una solicitud de entrevista.Chaves languidecía en la oscuridad hasta su alianza con Pilar Cisneros, una prominente periodista costarricense, que lo presentó a los votantes costarricenses como un gerente experimentado que le haría frente a la corrupción.Justo un día después de que Cisneros se uniera a la campaña de Chaves en agosto, el periódico local La Nación hizo pública la investigación del Banco Mundial que descubrió que había demostrado un patrón de acoso sexual contra empleadas júnior entre 2008 y 2013.Chaves respondió restando importancia a los hallazgos: “Ya están demostrando el miedo de la candidatura de Rodrigo Chaves los que tienen secuestrado a este país”, dijo en un mensaje en video publicado en las redes sociales horas después de la publicación del artículo.Las revelaciones apenas perjudicaron la campaña de Chaves. Cuando se reveló la investigación, Chaves solo contaba con un dos por ciento en las encuestas. En la primera vuelta de las elecciones nacionales, celebrada en febrero, había obtenido suficientes votos para pasar a la segunda vuelta presidencial.Candidatos presidenciales costarricenses durante un debate televisado previo a las elecciones de primera vuelta, que se celebraron en febrero.Mayela Lopez/ReutersCisneros salió en defensa de Chaves, ayudándolo a protegerse de los plenos efectos de las revelaciones. “¿Ustedes creen que Pilar Cisneros hubiera apoyado a un acosador sexual?”, dijo a los medios locales en enero. Al mes siguiente, ganó un escaño en el Congreso por el partido de Chaves.En vísperas de la votación final del domingo, la Universidad de Costa Rica encontró que Chaves tenía una estrecha ventaja sobre su oponente, el expresidente José María Figueres. En una encuesta realizada con 1000 votantes llevada a cabo por la universidad del 24 al 28 de marzo, Chaves lideró por 3,4 puntos porcentuales, ligeramente por arriba del margen de error de la encuesta de 3,1 por ciento.Otra encuesta publicada el 1 de marzo por la universidad reveló que solo el 13 por ciento de los votantes pensaba que las acusaciones de acoso contra Chaves eran falsas. Pero el 45 por ciento dijo que las acusaciones no influirían en su voto.Chaves se ha beneficiado de la impopularidad de Figueres, su oponente, quien se ha visto salpicado por acusaciones de corrupción durante su primer mandato en la década de 1990. Figueres, quien lidera el mayor y más antiguo partido político del país, el Partido Liberación Nacional, está acusado de recibir pagos a principios de la década de 2000 de una empresa de telecomunicaciones francesa a cambio de un trato preferente mientras era presidente.Figueres ha negado las acusaciones y los fiscales que investigaron los pagos, que se produjeron tras el fin de su mandato, no presentaron cargos.Sin embargo, a los ojos de muchos costarricenses, Figueres y su partido han llegado a representar la venalidad y el elitismo del sistema político nacional, que muchos creen que ya no es capaz de resolver los problemas económicos del país, dijo Ronald Alfaro, quien dirige el Centro de Investigación y Estudios Políticos de la Universidad de Costa Rica.José María Figueres, el candidato presidencial por el Partido Liberación Nacional, celebra luego de avanzar a la segunda vuelta presidencial de Costa Rica en febrero.Arnoldo Robert/Getty ImagesLa economía costarricense, dependiente del turismo, se vio muy afectada por la pandemia: en 2020, su producto interior bruto experimentó la mayor caída en cuatro décadas. Aunque gran parte de la economía se recuperó, el país ahora tiene dificultades para frenar el aumento de los precios de los alimentos y el combustible.“Las acusaciones acaban anulándose mutuamente”, dijo. “Los votantes acaban votando no por el candidato que les gusta, sino contra el que creen que tiene más pulgas que el otro”, dijo.Decepcionados por los escándalos que rodean a ambos candidatos, la mayoría de los costarricenses parecen haber perdido el interés en las elecciones. Solo una cuarta parte de los electores registrados votaron por Chaves o Figueres en la primera ronda de las elecciones, que se vio empañada por la participación más baja de los últimos 70 años.Documentos del tribunal interno del Banco Mundial y del sindicato muestran que Chaves fue sancionado en 2019 después de que dos empleadas presentaran denuncias de acoso. En ese momento, era el jefe de país del banco para Indonesia, un puesto de nivel de director que supervisa miles de millones de dólares de préstamos a una de las mayores economías en desarrollo del mundo.Costarricenses rumbo a los centros de votación de San José en las elecciones generales que se realizaron en febrero.Ezequiel Becerra/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLas mujeres afirmaron que Chaves intentó besar en la boca a las empleadas de menor rango, hizo comentarios sexuales sobre su apariencia y realizó repetidas invitaciones no deseadas a habitaciones de hotel y cenas. Las identidades de las mujeres no se han hecho públicas.Una de las mujeres, que estaba subordinada a Chaves, declaró al tribunal que este “comentó que le gustaba que ella se agachara, y luego procedió a dejar caer un objeto y a pedirle que lo recogiera para él”, petición que, dijo, rechazó.Chaves fue degradado y se le congeló el sueldo, pero el banco no llegó a calificar explícitamente su comportamiento de acoso sexual. Dejó la organización días después y regresó a su Costa Rica natal para convertirse en el ministro de Hacienda del presidente Carlos Alvarado.El Ministerio de Comunicación de Costa Rica dijo que el actual gobierno no había tenido conocimiento del caso de acoso y que Chaves le dijo a sus integrantes que volvió porque deseaba pasar su jubilación con su madre de edad avanzada.A los seis meses, Chaves dejó su puesto en el ministerio y anunció una candidatura presidencial con un partido político poco conocido, prometiendo “devolver el poder a los ciudadanos” mediante la celebración de consultas populares sobre temas políticos importantes.A pesar de la salida de Chaves del Banco Mundial, quienes lo acusaron presentaron un recurso ante el tribunal interno para que revisara la investigación de mala conducta del banco.Mujeres se manifestaron en el Día Internacional de la Mujer en San José, en marzoMayela Lopez/Reuters“Los hechos del presente caso indican que la conducta del señor C. era de naturaleza sexual y que sabía o debería haber sabido que su conducta no era bienvenida”, dijo el tribunal en su fallo de junio. Un funcionario del Banco Mundial dijo que el banco no discutía los hechos del caso tal y como se presentaban en la sentencia.Incluso antes de que se emitiera la sentencia, en enero de 2021, la organización prohibió a Chaves la entrada en sus instalaciones y le impuso una prohibición de recontratación. La organización hermana del banco, el Fondo Monetario Internacional, dijo que también restringió el acceso de Chaves a sus instalaciones.En los meses transcurridos, Chaves ha negado o tergiversado las conclusiones; en su lugar, ha afirmado que el Banco Mundial encontró poco más que una acusación contra él, refiriéndose a la decisión inicial del banco de no calificar sus malas acciones de acoso sexual.También ha dicho que puede visitar libremente las oficinas del Banco Mundial —contradiciendo la prohibición del banco de acceder a sus oficinas— y que como presidente seguirá haciendo negocios con el banco, que tiene 2300 millones de dólares en préstamos pendientes en Costa Rica.Chaves también prometió que “revisará” una reciente flexibilización de las restricciones a la fecundación in vitro y al aborto. El aborto es legal en Costa Rica cuando el embarazo pone en peligro la salud de la mujer.Estas medidas amenazan con desbaratar los lentos pero notables avances en los derechos reproductivos de las mujeres bajo los últimos gobiernos, dijo Arroyo, la abogada de derechos humanos. Dijo que las propuestas también dañan el papel de Costa Rica en el avance de los derechos sociales en una región profundamente conservadora desde el punto de vista social, donde el aborto está ampliamente prohibido y donde la violencia contra las mujeres queda mayormente impune.El Erizo, un barrio de bajos recursos, y el moderno vecindario de Ciruelas, en la provincia de Alajuela, Costa Rica.Luis Acosta/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesLa estabilidad política y la sólida democracia de Costa Rica han sido durante mucho tiempo una excepción en una región dominada por el autoritarismo y el crimen organizado, y el país ha alcanzado uno de los niveles más altos de inclusión social de América Latina, desde el acceso a la educación y la atención sanitaria hasta los derechos civiles.“Si Costa Rica cae en los derechos de las mujeres, lo más probable es que todos los demás vecinos también no tengan este referente para poder seguir avanzando”, dijo Arroyo.Anatoly Kurmanaev es un corresponsal radicado en Ciudad de México desde donde cubre México, Centroamérica y el Caribe. Antes de integrarse a la corresponsalía de México en 2021, pasó ocho años reportando desde Caracas sobre Venezuela y la región vecina. @akurmanaev More

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      Harassment Case Tests Women’s Rights in Costa Rica’s Close Election

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      In Sunday’s runoff, voters will decide between a candidate found to have sexually harassed junior employees at the World Bank and a former president once accused of corruption.SAN JOSÉ, Costa Rica — He was demoted from a senior position at the World Bank because of sexual harassment. Now, the economist Rodrigo Chaves — who has campaigned as a populist outsider in an election marked by anger at traditional politicians — leads the polls to become Costa Rica’s next president on Sunday.It’s an unexpected rise to prominence in a country that has taken a lead role in the advancement of progressive policies in Central America, underlining how the desire to punish political elites for economic stagnation is overshadowing most other issues.In 2019, Mr. Chaves was reprimanded by the World Bank for what was shown to be a pattern of sexual misconduct against junior employees, though the details of his behavior were made public by a Costa Rica newspaper only in August — details the presidential candidate has repeatedly rebutted.Mr. Chaves’s denial and downplaying of a documented history of sexual harassment come two years after another Costa Rican politician, the former president and a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Óscar Arias Sánchez, narrowly avoided prosecution for sexual abuse, in a scandal that shook the country.Mr. Arias was accused in 2019 of sexual assault or misconduct by at least nine women, emerging as one of the most significant #MeToo cases in Latin America. However, in December 2020, the charges brought against him by two of the women were dropped.A protest against Óscar Arias Sánchez, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and former president of Costa Rica, who was accused of sexual assault in 2019.Juan Carlos Ulate/ReutersHuman rights activists now say that Mr. Chaves’s bid for power threatens to undermine progress in Central America’s most liberal and egalitarian nation.“The message that this is sending to society is that sexual abuse is something minor, something not serious,” said Larissa Arroyo, a Costa Rican human rights lawyer. “This campaign is normalizing and legitimizing the abuse.”Mr. Chaves and his press office didn’t respond to an interview request.Mr. Chaves languished in obscurity until his alliance with Pilar Cisneros, a prominent female Costa Rican journalist, who presented him to Costa Rican voters as an experienced administrator who would tackle corruption.Just a day after Ms. Cisneros joined Mr. Chaves’s campaign in August, the local newspaper La Nación made public the World Bank’s investigation that found he demonstrated a pattern of sexual harassment against junior female employees between 2008 and 2013.Mr. Chaves responded by downplaying the findings: “Those who have kidnapped the nation are already showing their fear of the candidacy of Rodrigo Chaves.” he said in a video address posted on social media hours after the article’s publication.The revelations did little to damage Mr. Chaves’s campaign. When the investigation was revealed, he was polling at just 2 percent. By the first round of national elections, held in February, he had earned enough votes to move onto the presidential runoff.Costa Rican presidential candidates during a televised debate ahead of the general election, which was held in February.Mayela Lopez/ReutersMs. Cisneros came to Mr. Chaves’s defense, helping to shield him from the full impact of the revelations. “Do you think that Pilar Cisneros would have supported a sexual harasser?” she told the local media in January. The next month, she won a congressional seat for Mr. Chaves’ party.Ahead of the final vote on Sunday, the state-run University of Costa Rica found Mr. Chaves narrowly leading against his opponent: a former Costa Rican president, José María Figueres. In a poll of 1,000 voters conducted by the university on March 24-28, Mr. Chaves led by 3.4 percentage points, slightly above the survey’s margin of error of 3.1 percent.A separate poll published by the University of Costa Rica on March 1 found that only 13 percent of voters thought that harassment accusations against Mr. Chaves were false. But 45 percent said that the accusations would not influence their vote.Mr. Chaves has benefited from the unpopularity of his opponent, Mr. Figueres, who has been marred by accusations of corruption during his first term in office in the 1990s. Mr. Figueres, who leads the country’s oldest and largest political party, the National Liberation Party, is accused of receiving payments in the early 2000s from a French telecommunications company in return for preferential treatment while he was president.Mr. Figueres has denied the accusations, and prosecutors who investigated the payments, which occurred after he stepped down, did not press charges.However, in the eyes of many Costa Ricans, Mr. Figueres and his party have come to represent the venality and elitism of the country’s political system, which many believe is no longer able to solve the country’s economic problems, said Ronald Alfaro, who leads the University of Costa Rica’s Center of Political Studies and Investigation.José María Figueres, the presidential candidate for the National Liberation Party, after advancing to the Costa Rican presidential runoff in February.Arnoldo Robert/Getty ImagesCosta Rica’s tourism-reliant economy suffered greatly from the pandemic — in 2020, its gross domestic product saw its greatest drop in four decades. While parts of the economy bounced back, the country is struggling to rein in rising food and fuel costs.“The accusations end up canceling each other,” Mr. Alfaro said. “Voters end up casting their ballots not for the candidate they like but against the candidate they believe has more fleas than the other,” he said.Turned off by the scandals around both candidates, most Costa Ricans appear to have lost interest in the election. Only a quarter of all registered voters cast their ballots for either Mr. Chaves or Mr. Figueres in the first round of elections, which had the lowest turnout in 70 years.Documents from the World Bank’s internal tribunal and labor union show that Mr. Chaves was punished in 2019 after two female employees filed harassment complaints. At the time, he was the bank’s country head for Indonesia, a director-level position overseeing billions of dollars of lending to one of the world’s largest developing economies.Costa Ricans heading to polling stations in San José in the general elections that took place in February.Ezequiel Becerra/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe women said Mr. Chaves made attempts to kiss junior employees on the mouth, made sexual comments about their appearances and repeatedly made unwelcome invitations to hotel rooms and dinners. The identities of the women have not been made public.One woman, who reported to Mr. Chaves, told the tribunal that he “commented that he liked it when she bent over, then proceeded to drop an item and ask her to pick it up for him,” a request she said she refused.Mr. Chaves was demoted and his salary was frozen, but the bank stopped short of explicitly calling his behavior sexual harassment. He left the organization days later and returned to his native Costa Rica to become the finance minister for the president, Carlos Alvarado.The Costa Rican Communication Ministry said the current government had been unaware of the harassment case, and that Mr. Chaves told its members at the time that he returned because he wanted to spend his retirement with his elderly mother. Within six months, Mr. Chaves left his ministry position and announced a presidential bid with a little-known political party, promising to “return power to citizens” by holding referendums on important policy topics.Despite Mr. Chaves’s departure from the World Bank, his accusers brought an appeal to the internal tribunal to review the bank’s misconduct investigation.Women demonstrating on International Women’s Day in San José, in March.Mayela Lopez/Reuters“The facts of the present case indicate that Mr. C’s conduct was sexual in nature and that he knew or should have known that his conduct was unwelcome,” the tribunal said in its June ruling. A World Bank official said the bank did not dispute the facts of the case as presented in the ruling.Even before the ruling was issued, in January 2021, the organization banned Mr. Chaves from its premises and imposed a rehiring ban. The bank’s sister organization, the International Monetary Fund, said it also restricted Mr. Chaves’s access to its premises.In the months since, Mr. Chaves has denied or misrepresented the findings; instead, he’s said that the World Bank found little more than an allegation against him, referring to the bank’s initial decision not to call his wrongdoings sexual harassment.He has also said that he can freely visit the World Bank’s offices — contradicting the bank’s ban on his access — and that as president he will continue doing business with the bank, which has $2.3 billion in outstanding loans in Costa Rica.Mr. Chaves has also promised to “revise” the laws on in vitro fertilization and abortion, which have been made more accessible by recent presidential decrees. Abortion is legal in Costa Rica when the pregnancy threatens a woman’s health.These measures threaten to derail the slow but noticeable advances in women’s reproductive rights under the recent governments, said Ms. Arroyo, the human rights lawyer. She said the proposals also would damage Costa Rica’s role in the advancement of social rights in a deeply socially conservative region where abortion is largely banned and where violence against women goes mostly unpunished.El Erizo, a low-income neighborhood, and the modern neighborhood of Ciruelas, in the province of Alajuela, Costa Rica.Luis Acosta/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesCosta Rica’s political stability and strong democracy have long made it an outlier in a region dominated by authoritarians and organized crime, and the country has achieved one of Latin America’s highest levels of social inclusion, in areas ranging from access to education and health care to civil rights.“If Costa Rica declines in its protection of women’s rights,” Ms. Arroyo said, “it’s most likely that the rest of the neighboring countries will not have this example to keep moving forward.” More

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      Lynn Yeakel, Spurred Into Politics by Anita Hill, Dies at 80

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      She nearly unseated Senator Arlen Specter after his aggressive grilling of Ms. Hill during Clarence Thomas’s 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings.For a brief period in 1992, Lynn Yeakel carried the hope of many American women on her shoulders.While watching the 1991 Supreme Court confirmation hearings of Clarence Thomas, she was among millions of people who were outraged by the way the Senate Judiciary Committee treated Anita Hill, a law professor who had accused Mr. Thomas of sexual harassment.The optics of the all-male, all-white committee grilling a Black woman and more or less dismissing her complaint about sexual harassment — not a widely acknowledged dynamic at the time — drove several women to run for office in what pundits called the “Year of the Woman.”Ms. Yeakel (pronounced YAY-kul), a Pennsylvania Democrat who had never run for office before, was among them.She took on Senator Arlen Specter, a Pennsylvania Republican, whose aggressive interrogation of Ms. Hill during the hearings, which riveted the nation, put him at the top of the list of men whom women voters most wanted to defeat.“If it hadn’t been for those hearings,” Ms. Yeakel told The New York Times in 1992, “it never would have occurred to me to run against Arlen Specter.”Ms. Yeakel lost her Senate race but saw 1992 as a turning point for women in seeking political power.Drexel University CollegeIn the end, she came up short. Still, she had caught the zeitgeist of a particular moment in history. As she told WHYY radio, in Philadelphia, she believed those hearings would be seen in retrospect as a turning point for women in seeking political power and standing up for their rights.Ms. Yeakel died on Jan. 13 at a medical center in Fort Myers, Fla. She was 80. The cause was complications of a blood cancer, said her husband, Paul Yeakel. They lived in Rosemont, Pa., and had a second home in Florida.Ms. Yeakel had been a longtime advocate for women’s rights and a fund-raiser for women’s charities but was largely unknown to the public when she challenged Mr. Specter, a former Philadelphia district attorney and two-term incumbent.Never having run for office, she barely registered in the polls. But during the Democratic primary, she ran a startling TV spot. It showed footage of Mr. Specter questioning Ms. Hill; Ms. Yeakel then stops the footage and asks the viewer, “Did this make you as angry as it made me?”She was the surprise winner of the five-way primary, earning 45 percent of the vote and becoming an overnight sensation. She initially led Mr. Specter in the polls by 15 percentage points.But Mr. Specter found his footing. He raised more than twice as much money as she did. He expressed some contrition for his treatment of Ms. Hill, saying he understood why her complaint against Justice Thomas “touched a raw nerve among so many women.”And he ran an aggressive campaign. He questioned Ms. Yeakel’s competence. He criticized her husband for belonging to a country club that had never had a Black member. And he criticized her father, a former member of Congress from Virginia, for his votes against civil rights.Ms. Yeakel noted that Mr. Specter was focusing on the men in her life, not on her, but he erased her lead. In the end, he beat her by three percentage points.Lynn Moore Hardy was born on July 9, 1941, in Portsmouth, Va. Her father, Porter Hardy Jr., a businessman, was a Democratic member of Congress from 1947 to 1968. Her mother, Lynn (Moore) Hardy, was a schoolteacher.Ms. Yeakel in 2019. Behind her is a photograph of Alice Paul, who helped secure passage of the 19th Amendment, granting women the right to vote.Bob HortonLynn grew up in Virginia and went to Randolph-Macon Woman’s College (now Randolph College) in Lynchburg, Va. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1963 with a major in French literature. Much later, in 2005, she earned a master’s degree in management from the American College of Financial Services in King of Prussia, Pa.Before she ran for the Senate, Ms. Yeakel was a co-founder and chief executive of Women’s Way, one of the first and largest fund-raising coalitions dedicated to the advancement of women and girls.After her Senate bid, she ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1994. President Bill Clinton appointed her that year to be the Mid-Atlantic regional director for the Department of Health and Human Services.Ms. Yeakel later joined Drexel University in Philadelphia as the director of its medical college’s Institute for Women’s Health and Leadership. There, she established the Women One Award and Scholarship Fund, which provides scholarships for medical students from underrepresented communities.Ms. Yeakel speaks at an event in 2019 celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Pennsylvania General Assembly’s vote to ratify the 19th Amendment.Daniel BurkeAt Drexel, she also established Vision 2020, now called Vision Forward. Its goal is to help women achieve social, economic and political equality with men.She married Paul M. Yeakel in 1965. In addition to her husband, she is survived by her daughter, Courtney; her son, Paul Jr.; and six grandchildren. More

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      Does the US Have Leverage to Advocate for Women’s Rights in Afghanistan? 

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      After the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, women’s rights in Afghanistan came under consistent attack by the Taliban, with many women activists captured, tortured, killed and reportedly raped. Unfortunately, the extent of these crimes is unknown due to a lack of comprehensive media coverage. However, the AFINT news channel reports that at least 200 people had been detained, tortured, raped and banned from traveling by the Taliban in the past six months. This number includes 102 women and 98 men, of whom 50 are journalists, 92 are civil activists, two are singers and 40 are prosecutors and judges in the previous government. 

      Over the past six months, Afghan women have continued to protest against the Taliban policies, provoking a brutal response. One of the detainees told AFINT: “Unfortunately, there is sexual harassment by the Taliban. The Taliban think that a woman who protests for her rights or has worked before they came to power is a prostitute. So, they consider these women as sex slaves.” While it may be impossible to change the Taliban’s mindset, international and regional pressure is key to helping Afghan women and holding the current regime accountable. 

      The Taliban Use Violence Against Women as a Bargaining Chip

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      To deal with the international pressures, the Taliban turned the women’s rights issues into a bargaining chip against the international community to gain recognition and force engagement. The US, in particular, consistently calls on the Taliban to respect women’s rights. But does the US have enough leverage over the Taliban to force them to revise their treatment of women?

      Power Is Everything 

      Since the overthrow of the Afghan government last August, the US remained engaged with the Taliban, although Washington does not recognize the regime as legitimate. Although the Taliban views the US as the loser in this conflict, many within the group’s leadership believe that they have to interact with Washington to gain recognition. 

      The Taliban’s Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai said in December: “If the US embassy reopens in Kabul, all European countries will be here in half an hour. We are working hard in this regard, and since I have been a member of the negotiating team with them (the Americans), I am sure from their morals and behavior that, God willing, they will be back soon.” 

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      From the Taliban’s perspective, power is everything. As far as they can control the country, the US has to respect them and will have to recognize them. This assumption leads the group to not compromise on women’s rights. Instead of revising their policies, they detained women activists and then released some of them following pressure to do so during the Oslo talks in January.

      The US has profound concerns about the Taliban’s relations with other terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Islamic State branch in Afghanistan, but human rights, women’s rights and an inclusive government are all part of the US agenda in its interaction with the country’s new leadership. In his talk at the United States Institute of Peace, Thomas West, the US special representative for Afghanistan, emphasized these values as crucial for the US-Taliban relationship. 

      However, it is imperative to keep in mind that any compromise from the international community on women’s rights that suggests to the Taliban that their harsh policies may be accommodated will only exacerbate the situation for women in Afghanistan. 

      International Commitment

      For more than 20 years, the US and international community repeated their strong commitment to supporting women in Afghanistan, creating the expectation that it should continue doing so after the Taliban takeover. However, many Afghan women saw the US agreement with the Taliban as a betrayal.

      International pressure is the critical factor for holding the Taliban accountable. When the women activists disappeared without explanation, the Taliban denied its involvement for months. The United Nations and US diplomats repeatedly called on the Taliban to find the missing women.

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      In the end, the Taliban released several well-known women activists despite denying involvement in detaining them. The group also published videos of forced confessions by the activists. Totalitarian regimes use this tactic against human rights activities for propaganda and to mislead the public; exposing the Taliban’s double game will not be easy and will require international commitment and cooperation. 

      There are several measures that can be helpful in holding the Taliban accountable, and the US can play a central role. First, the diplomatic contacts with the Taliban should not be interpreted as hope for recognition; rather, diplomacy should be used only for contact and assessing responsibilities.

      Second, international consensus on women’s rights and supporting the idea of an inclusive and legitimate government in Afghanistan is key. This is significant for women’s rights and negotiation for building a broad-based government to reflect Afghan society, which is instrumental for avoiding another round of conflict. 

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      Third, increasing the activities of international organizations in Afghanistan to support women and monitor their situation under the Taliban is necessary. Currently, there is no access to different corners of the country where crimes against women may be committed. Fourth, financial support to organizations championing women’s education and activities will be vital for women’s voices and Afghan social society to resist the Taliban’s fascist approach.

      The US can exert pressure on behalf of Afghan women to demand that their rights to work and education are honored. Any degree of leniency toward the Taliban will make the situation worse for women. If the US shows a faltering resolve or sends a misleading message, the international consensus on human rights will disappear.  

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More