According to the UN, a Taliban edict prohibits Afghan women from working for the agency. The Taliban allegedly told the UN about the plan orally but not yet in writing, according to the UN.
Men and women on the UN’s Afghan employees have been instructed not to come to work for 48 hours, pending clarification from talks with the Taliban. Since the Taliban took control in Afghanistan in 2021, there has been a growing restriction on the rights of women.
In on-the-ground assistance activities, female workers are crucial, especially in finding other women who are in need. Afghanistan, which is suffering from a serious economic and humanitarian catastrophe, has 23 million people who need humanitarian assistance. The UN has been trying to provide this aid.
Female foreign employees are not subject to the prohibition. However, if carried out, this would be the most important test of the UN’s future operations in Afghanistan and its partnership with the Taliban administration. According to the UN, Taliban local leaders in eastern Nangarhar province on Tuesday stopped Afghan women from travelling to work at UN facilities.
According to Stephane Dujarric, this is just the most recent example of a “disturbing trend” that is weakening the capacity of aid groups to work in Afghanistan, where more than half of the country’s 23 million residents need assistance.
The local news agencies contacted representatives for the Taliban government and the Afghan communication minister for comment, but neither organisation responded right away. Two UN insiders told Reuters that the organisation had asked all employees to skip work for the next 48 hours due to worries about how the prohibition would be enforced.
The UN facilities in Afghanistan typically close on Friday and Saturday, so employees wouldn’t be back until at least Sunday. The Taliban government claims it upholds women’s rights in accordance with its understanding of Islamic law. The Taliban government came to control as US-led troops withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of conflict.
The Taliban have increased restrictions on women’s participation in public life since toppling the Western-backed administration in Kabul, including prohibiting women from attending universities and closing the majority of girls’ secondary schools.
Most female NGO employees were prohibited from working by Taliban officials in December, which according to relief workers has made it harder to contact female beneficiaries and may cause funders to withhold funding.
The ruling, if upheld, implies that the UN is no longer exempt from a December prohibition on women working for all NGOs, with the exception of those in the healthcare field. It is anticipated that female employees in the health industry will still be permitted to work, but only if they report to medical centres rather than offices.
Teenage girls and women have been prohibited from attending schools, colleges, and institutions ever since the Taliban retook control. If a woman is going more than 72 kilometers (48 miles), she must be clothed so that only her eyes are visible, and she must be escorted by a male relative. The easiest of liberties were taken away from women last November when they were prohibited from using parks, gyms, and swimming pools.
Additionally, proponents of female education have come under attack by the Taliban. A well-known Afghan advocate for women’s education named Matiullah Wesa was detained last month for an unspecified offence. Professor Ismail Mashal, a vocal opponent of the Taliban government’s prohibition on women attending college, was also detained in Kabul in February while distributing free literature.
