{"id":6901,"date":"2024-05-07T12:45:05","date_gmt":"2024-05-07T12:45:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6901"},"modified":"2024-05-07T14:10:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-07T14:10:50","slug":"afghanistans-only-woman-diplomat-resigns-following-1-6m-gold-smuggling-scandal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/?p=6901","title":{"rendered":"Afghanistan\u2019s only woman diplomat resigns following \u00a31.6m gold smuggling scandal"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Afghanistan\u2019s only female diplomat has resigned days after she was caught by airport authorities allegedly smuggling nearly \u00a31.6 million (Approx. 27.7m in Ghana Cedis) of gold into India.<\/p>\n

Zakia Wardak announced her resignation on social media after Indian media reported that she and her son had been stopped last month on arrival in\u00a0Mumbai\u00a0from Dubai carrying 25kg of gold.<\/p>\n

Ms Wardak is understood to have been appointed to India before the\u00a0Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021<\/a>\u00a0and was the Afghan Consul-General in Mumbai.<\/p>\n

She had been acting as the country\u2019s most senior representative in India since\u00a0Afghanistan\u2019s embassy in New Delhi shut down in November.<\/p>\n

Ms Wardak was reportedly not arrested when she was stopped because of her diplomatic immunity, but the gold was confiscated by India\u2019s Directorate of Revenue Intelligence.<\/p>\n

She made no reference to the gold in her resignation statement, but said she had \u201cencountered numerous personal attacks and defamation\u201d over the past year.<\/p>\n

Such incidents \u201chave demonstrated the challenges faced by women in Afghan society\u201d, she said, adding: \u201cIt has become increasingly clear that the public narrative is unfairly targeting the only female representative within this system, rather than focusing on constructive assistance and support.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Many Afghan diplomats remained loyal to the\u00a0internationally-backed government when Kabul fell<\/a>\u00a0despite their administration having been swept away.<\/p>\n

They have refused to cede official buildings and positions to the new\u00a0Taliban\u00a0emirate and have remained in post issuing visas and paperwork.<\/p>\n

The Taliban authorities have full control of only around a dozen Afghan embassies abroad \u2013 including in Pakistan, China, Turkey and Iran.<\/p>\n

Ashraf Ghani\u2019s government was notorious for corruption before it was swept away by the Taliban and public disgust at thieving officials proved a powerful recruiting tool for the insurgents.<\/p>\n

No nation has yet formally recognised the Taliban\u2019s new government, but many acknowledge them as the\u00a0de facto ruling authority.<\/p>\n

Since the Taliban took control in August 2021, they have barred women from\u00a0most spheres of public life and employment<\/a>. Girls are stopped from going to classes beyond primary school age.<\/p>\n

They have also restricted women\u2019s access to work, travel and health care if they are unmarried or do not have a male guardian, while those who do not cover their heads and faces risk arrest.<\/p>

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Afghanistan\u2019s only female diplomat has resigned days after she was caught by airport authorities allegedly smuggling nearly \u00a31.6 million (Approx. 27.7m in Ghana Cedis) of gold into India. Zakia Wardak… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6902,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"yes","rop_publish_now_accounts":{"facebook_2277560469115098_106292521332774":"","twitter_aToxNzczMzI3Njk4OTg4ODUxMjAxOw==_1773327698988851200":""},"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6901","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6901"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6907,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6901\/revisions\/6907"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6902"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6901"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6901"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sotnews.agency\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6901"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}