So we have made some progress. But we need to be patient. We need to be principled, and we need to make sure that we do not take actions in order to protect a set of human rights and violate the rights of others. Another human rights worker agrees. Quite often, there is a knee-jerk reaction when there is a human rights situation that is of concern.
People think that maybe one way of improving it is to boycott or avoid the situation.
There's no evidence to support that. Given just how bad the situation is here in Afghanistan, what we're advocating is engagement. Afghans constantly point to East Timor or Kosovo, for example, where the world acted rightly and acted promptly, whereas they have known nothing but war for the past two decades and the world has done little to resolve the situation. The international community has acted, but for all the wrong reasons, say some aid workers in Afghanistan. The United Nations Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taliban in 1999.