Top UN officials on Wednesday said that a Taliban government ban on Afghan women working for its mission in the country would violate the world body’s charter, and demanded it be revoked.
The UN also announced that it had instructed all its Afghan staff, men and women, not to report to the office after the ban was confirmed.
Under their austere interpretation of Islam, Taliban authorities have imposed a slew of restrictions on Afghan women since seizing power in 2021, including banning them from higher education and many government jobs.
Photo: AP
The increasing curbs are reminiscent of the Taliban’s first government between 1996 and 2001, when the UN said they were responsible for repeated human rights violations — particularly against girls and women.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres demanded the ban be “immediately revoked.”
“This is a violation of the inalienable fundamental human rights of women,” spokesman Stephane Dujarric said in a statement on behalf of Guterres.
The UN on Tuesday said the Taliban government had extended a ban on women working for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to the world body’s workforce of about 400 Afghan women.
UN humanitarian coordinator in Afghanistan Ramiz Alakbarov said “the charter of the United Nations is going to be violated” because of the ban.
“It is absolutely clear that no authority can give instructions to the United Nations ... on who should be employed,” he told reporters. “We are not going to make an exception.”
While it is unclear what the effect of a charter violation would be in the long term, the UN ordered all Afghan staff “not to report to the office until further notice.”
The UN Security Council planned to discuss the issue at a closed-door meeting yesterday morning.
UN mission head in Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva said in a separate statement that “in the history of the United Nations, no other regime has ever tried to ban women from working for the organization just because they are women.”
“This decision represents an assault against women, the fundamental principles of the UN and on international law,” Otunbayeva said.
UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed said the organization’s Afghan female staff would continue to be paid.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said he was “disturbed” by the “reprehensible” order.
“This will threaten vulnerable Afghans who depend on humanitarian assistance. We urge the Taliban to put Afghans first and reverse this decision,” he wrote on Twitter yesterday.
The world body’s 400 female Afghan employees are the bulk of its 600 female staff working in Afghanistan. In total, there are about 3,300 Afghans in the 3,900-strong UN workforce there.
The UN airlifted US$1.8 billion into Afghanistan between December 2021 and January, funding an aid lifeline for the nation’s 38 million citizens and shoring up the domestic economy.
The Taliban authorities in December last year ordered all NGOs to stop employing Afghan women after receiving “serious complaints” that female employees were not observing a proper Islamic dress code.
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