The UN mission in Afghanistan said a week ago that it was reviewing its local operations and had asked all its staff there not to report to work until May 5, after the country’s extremist Islamist leadership banned women from working at the world body.
In response to the UN’s protest a the Taliban government announced: there is no obstacle to the operation of the mission, but their decision is the country’s internal affairs, and everyone is expected to respect it. UN officials are currently negotiating with the Taliban leadership in the hope that women working for the aid organization will be an exception to the general ban on women working.
Steiner told the AP reporter:
according to the UN’s position, respect for human rights cannot be a subject of debate, so the world organization will leave Afghanistan in May if the Taliban do not change the decree.
According to the head of the UNDP, it is cause for faint optimism that a the Taliban leadership has recently, under certain conditions, allowed women to work in healthcare, education and some small businesseswhich the country desperately needs, because its economy is ailing.
He also welcomed that the Taliban enabled the UN to begin extensive humanitarian action and emergency development assistance, on the other hand, he accused them that in their new and new decrees they keep changing the conditions.
Roza Otunbayeva, head of the local UN mission, announced at the beginning of April that they had contacted the Taliban in order to immediately withdraw the ban on women working. He emphasized that the Taliban’s action is unprecedented in the practice of the international organization and “an attack against women, the basic principles of the United Nations and international law.”
The UN has about 3,900 staff in Afghanistan, of which 3,300 are Afghans.. The organization employs 600 Afghan and 200 foreign women. The latter are not affected by the Taliban’s restrictions.
Cover image source: Getty Images
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