Monthly Action Points (MAP) for the Security Council: June 2025

Afghanistan

Afghanistan remains the most serious women’s rights crisis in the world as the Taliban impose escalating policies of gender-based discrimination intended to erase women and girls from public life. The Taliban’s intensifying enforcement of bans on women working for NGOs and the UN increasingly hinders humanitarian aid delivery, especially to women and girls. Cuts to humanitarian funding also threaten women and girls’ access to healthcare, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services. Women and girls are also unsafe at home, as the Taliban have dismantled all systems to respond to gender-based violence (GBV) and have compelled men to police the conduct of their female relatives. The Taliban continue to target and arbitrarily detain women activists, journalists, human rights defenders (WHRDs) and protestors, as well as women and girls accused of violating the Taliban’s morality laws, including its dress code; they face serious abuses in custody including torture and sexual violence. Women and girls from minority ethnic and religious groups; lesbian, bisexual and queer (LBQ) women; older women; women who are heads of households; and women and girls with disabilities also face intersecting forms of discrimination. These widespread, systematic and grave violations of the rights of women, girls and LGBTIQ people may amount to gender persecution, a crime against humanity. Afghan women and international experts also increasingly describe the situation as gender apartheid and have called for codification of gender apartheid as a crime against humanity. Meanwhile, Afghan refugees face deportation and the termination of protection by member states, despite ongoing persecution and discrimination targeting Afghan women.

The UN-led “Doha process,” an outcome of the independent assessment requested by Resolution 2679 (2023) to facilitate structured engagement between the international community and the Taliban, has thus far failed to prioritize women’s rights or meaningfully include Afghan women, despite the Council’s explicit request in Resolution 2721 (2023) to ensure the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of Afghan women throughout the process, and for Afghanistan to meet its international obligations. Afghan WHRDs and civil society continue to express serious concerns that current UN efforts to develop a “roadmap” for such engagement, including through the “Mosaic Process,” risk continued exclusion of Afghan women, deprioritization of their rights and further normalization of the Taliban’s abuses. 

The Security Council should:

• Demand that the Taliban immediately reverse all policies and practices that prevent the full enjoyment of all women’s human rights in accordance with Afghanistan’s international obligations, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and relevant Security Council resolutions. 
• As per Resolutions 2593 (2021), 2679 (2023), 2681 (2023), 2721 (2023), and all resolutions on women, peace and security, demand the protection of women’s rights and the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of diverse Afghan women and LGBTIQ people, especially WHRDs, peacebuilders and victims of gender-based crimes, in all international discussions and outcomes about Afghanistan’s future, including all aspects of the “Doha Process.” 
• Support all efforts to seek accountability for all international crimes, including gender-based crimes, such as a case against Afghanistan for violations of CEDAW at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the creation of a UN accountability mechanism to document and preserve evidence of international crimes committed in Afghanistan.
• Call on the Taliban to ensure that all UN entities can fully discharge their mandates without hindrance.
• Urge donors to fully fund the humanitarian response and allocate increased flexible and direct funding to Afghan women-led civil society and humanitarian organizations. Urge all actors to ensure safe, gender-responsive and non-discriminatory humanitarian delivery, with women’s full and equal participation and leadership. 
• Call on the Taliban to immediately stop targeting human rights defenders (HRDs), peacebuilders and journalists, and release all who have been arbitrarily arrested and detained.
• Urge all Member States to refrain from forcibly returning refugees and asylum seekers to Afghanistan and to create and expand pathways to safe resettlement for Afghans who are experiencing persecution in Afghanistan, including WHRDs.

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Violence since January 2025 in eastern DRC, including the AFC/M23’s takeover of Goma and Bukavu and dismantling of IDP camps, has displaced over a million people and exacerbated an already severe humanitarian crisis. Humanitarian providers have been forced to scale back or suspend operations amid targeting of humanitarian actors and supply routes as well as severe funding cuts. Ongoing conflict, displacement and suspension of basic services threaten to exacerbate food insecurity, increase maternal mortality and multiply the risk of infectious diseases. 

Disruption of protection networks and proliferation of weapons have greatly compounded the already acute risks of sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) for women and girls, including widespread and systematic conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV), with displaced women and girls particularly at risk. Services for survivors, including sexual and reproductive health (SRH) care, are further restricted by damage to health infrastructure, supply chain disruptions, attacks on providers and looting of supplies. HRDs, journalists, activists and members of civil society, including women and LGBTIQ people, face serious protection risks as a result of their essential work, particularly in AFC/M23-controlled areas.

The Security Council should:

• Demand all parties immediately cease hostilities and ensure protection of civilians, including by issuing clear orders to refrain from violence against civilians, including SGBV, and to ensure accountability for such actions. Call on both the DRC and Rwanda to cease support to their respective allied militias, and call on the Rwandan Defense Forces and its AFC/M23 proxies to immediately withdraw from the DRC without preconditions.
• Demand that all actors allow and facilitate full, safe, unhindered and immediate humanitarian access to all affected populations and restore basic services in line with Resolution 2773 (2025).
• Call for the full, equal, meaningful and safe participation of diverse women in all efforts to build peace. Any peace process or ceasefire negotiation should center human rights and accountability for all abuses against civilians, including SGBV.
• Support efforts to investigate and hold accountable all parties responsible for atrocity crimes, including gender-based crimes, such as the ongoing International Criminal Court (ICC) investigation and the OHCHR fact-finding mission.
• Condemn threats and attacks against HRDs, journalists and civil society. Call for the protection and promotion of civic space and condemn the spread of mis- and disinformation.
• Urge donors to provide increased, sustainable, direct and flexible funding to local women-led and women’s rights organizations, and organizations providing SRH care and interventions against SGBV, including domestic violence and CRSV response; and support their meaningful participation in humanitarian coordination and response. 
• Call on MONUSCO and the DRC authorities to consult regularly and meaningfully with diverse women’s civil society organizations in order to protect civilians and safeguard women’s human rights.

Israel / Palestine

Israel’s military offensive in Gaza since October 2023 — described by many international experts as genocide — has killed over 53,000 Palestinians (likely a severe undercount), injured over 121,000, and forcibly displaced 90% of Gaza’s population multiple times, including 1 million women and girls. Palestinians in Gaza face a humanitarian catastrophe in the wake of Israel’s continued bombardment and its total blockade of aid since March 2025, which has put the entire population of Gaza at critical risk of famine. Attacks on healthcare facilities and providers have decimated health infrastructure, violating Palestinian women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights — with pregnant and postpartum women at particular risk — and their rights to life, health, human dignity and non-discrimination. GBV risks are heightened for women and girls, including in displacement sites; further, they are largely unable to access menstrual products, clean water and hygiene facilities. Israeli laws banning the operations of UNRWA, as well as systematic denial of visas for international NGOs, further threaten relief and civil society efforts. Israeli government efforts to control and militarize aid distribution undermines international law, violates humanitarian principles and risks further entrenching the forced displacement and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Gaza. 

Violence is escalating in the occupied West Bank, where Israeli military operations since January 2025 have displaced over 40,000 Palestinians and disrupted access to basic services, including SRH care for over 232,000 women and adolescent girls. Increased movement restrictions further limit Palestinian women’s access to healthcare, education, and livelihoods. Since 7 October 2023, at least 930 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank by Israeli state or settler violence, some of which may amount to extrajudicial killings. Arrests of Palestinians have also surged, and Palestinian detainees, including women and girls, face torture, including sexual violence, in detention.

The Security Council should:

• Demand an immediate, full and complete ceasefire in accordance with Resolution 2735 (2024), and an immediate end to violence and repression in the occupied West Bank.
• Demand all parties comply with their obligations under international law, including protecting and immediately stopping all attacks on civilians, civilian infrastructure and humanitarian actors.
• Demand full, immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access into Gaza and to all affected populations, as required by Resolutions 2728 (2024) and 2720 (2023). Demand respect for core humanitarian principles of humanity, impartiality, independence and neutrality, and reject any proposed aid modalities that do not adhere to these principles.
• Call on Israel to repeal legislation banning UNRWA. All donors should urgently restore and scale up funding for UNRWA.
• Demand an immediate halt to the transfer of weapons, parts and ammunition to Israel and Palestinian armed groups while there is risk that they are used to commit or facilitate serious violations of international law.
• Demand the humane treatment and immediate and unconditional release of all hostages and all forcibly detained and imprisoned without charge, in accordance with international humanitarian law.
• Demand Israel’s compliance with all provisional measures ordered by the ICJ to prevent genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, including by allowing full humanitarian access into Gaza. All Member States must uphold their obligations to prevent genocide.
• Demand an immediate end to the forcible transfer of civilians and to all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the occupied Palestinian territory (OPT), including immediate cessation of Israeli settlement activities in the West Bank.
• Urge all parties to cooperate with independent, impartial investigations, including the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the OPT, including East Jerusalem and Israel, to monitor, collect and verify evidence, and report on human rights violations and abuses, including GBV, committed by all parties on and since 7 October in Israel and the OPT. Call for all justice and accountability efforts to be human rights-based, survivor-centered and non-discriminatory and designed and implemented in partnership with survivors.
• Call on all Member States to take measures to implement the findings of the July 2024 ICJ advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation.
• Demand respect for the rights of diverse Palestinian women, including WHRDs, activists and journalists, and demand their full, equal, meaningful and safe participation in all efforts to build peace and shape post-conflict recovery.