The Taliban has added the United Nations to the list of organizations for which Afghan women may no longer work. The U.N. says women are critical to the delivery of life-saving medical assistance and other services to Afghans. Photo by Frank Dejongh/UNICEF
April 5 (UPI) — The Taliban has ordered all female Afghan employees of the United Nations to cease working for the agency as part of its crusade to stop girls and women from accessing education or employment.
The U.N. Mission in Afghanistan was seeking clarification from the de facto authorities after receiving word of an order banning female staff members of the U.N. from working, the U.N. said in a news release.
“We are still looking into how this development would affect our operations in the country,” U.N. Secretary-General spokesman Stephane Dujarric said Tuesday at a briefing at U.N. headquarters in New York.
“We expect to have more meetings with the de facto authorities tomorrow in Kabul, on which we are trying to seek some clarity.”
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres “strongly condemned” the ban on Afghan female colleagues working and demanded it be revoked.
“If this measure is not reversed, it will inevitably undermine our ability to deliver life-saving aid to the people who need it,” Guterres said in a Twitter post.
Dujarric said he understood the ban applied to the whole country, where the U.N. has 4,000 staff, of which 3,500 are Afghans.
“We hope we will hear strong voices from the Security Council,” he said, noting that the U.N. mission operates under its mandate.
After relatively constructive initial dealings since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, decisions over the last year by the fundamentalist leadership include bans on women accessing higher education, working for non-governmental aid organizations and accessing many public spaces.
In December, the Taliban issued decrees banning all female employees of NGOs — apart from the U.N. — from working in the country and barred women from attending public and private universities.
Advocates warned at the time that the NGO ban could severely impact access to basic supplies because women are vital for aid deliveries due to the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic law, which prohibits men and women from interacting in most situations.