UNITED NATIONS: The UN secretary-general on Wednesday demanded that the Taliban administration “immediately revoke” its ban on Afghan women working with the United Nations in Afghanistan.
“This is a violation of the fundamental human rights of women,” UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on behalf of Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
“The UN secretary-general calls on the Taliban to immediately revoke the ban and reverse all measures that restrict women’s and girls’ rights to work, education and freedom of movement.”
Afghan women who are United Nations employees have been prevented from reporting to work in eastern Nangarhar province, according to the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA).
The UN has warned Taliban authorities that its aid programs are impossible without its staff, expressing “serious concern” in a brief statement on Twitter.
Taliban officials ordered all foreign and domestic NGOs to stop women personnel working across the nation in December 2021.
Although women working in the health aid sector were exempted from the decree, several suspended their entire operations in protest. UN employees, including aid workers, were never beholden to the ban.
Restrictions on Afghan women under Taliban rule
Last month, UNAMA chief Roza Otunbayeva told the UN Security Council that she feared the Taliban authorities could extend the ban imposed on women working for NGOs to the UN’s women staff.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has imposed an austere interpretation of Islam, barring teenage girls from secondary school, pushing women out of many government jobs, and preventing them from travelling without a male relative.
Women have also been banned from universities and not allowed to enter parks or gardens.
The United Nations (UN) special rapporteur on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said in a recent speech in Geneva that the Taliban authorities’ policy “may amount to the crime of gender persecution.”
