The United Nations said on Wednesday that some aid programs in Afghanistan had been temporarily suspended due to a ban imposed by the Taliban-led administration on female humanitarian workers and warned that many other activities could come to a halt.
“Women’s participation in aid delivery is non-negotiable and must continue,” UN aid coordinator Martin Griffiths and heads of UN agencies and several humanitarian organizations said in a joint statement, calling on authorities to reverse the decision.
“Preventing women from carrying out humanitarian work has immediate and life-threatening consequences for all Afghans. In fact, we have had to temporarily halt some programs due to female staff shortages,” the statement said.
“We cannot ignore the operational constraints we now face as a humanitarian community. We will pledge to continue the life-saving activities…but we expect many activities to be temporarily halted, because we cannot deliver basic humanitarian assistance without the operators,” he added. the declaration.
In addition to the ban on aid workers, the Taliban banned girls from attending college on Saturday last week, after preventing girls from attending secondary schools since March.
“No country can exclude half of its population from contributing to society,” says the statement, also signed by the heads of the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the United Nations Development Programme, the International Security Council and the United Nations High Commissioners for Refugees and Human Rights.
Four large global aid organizations, which benefit millions of Afghans, said Sunday they had suspended operations because they were unable to run their programs without female staff.
The UN statement said the ban on humanitarian workers “comes at a time when more than 28 million people in Afghanistan … need help to survive as the country faces the perils of famine, economic decline, deep-rooted poverty and a harsh winter”.
The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday called for the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan, denouncing the Taliban government’s ban on girls from entering universities or working for humanitarian relief organizations.
The 15-member council said in a statement that the ban on girls’ enrollment in universities and secondary schools in Afghanistan “represents a growing undermining of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms.”
The council stressed that the ban on humanitarian workers “will have a significant and immediate impact on humanitarian operations in the country”, including those of the United Nations.
Members expressed their full support for the United Nations Political Mission in Afghanistan, adding, “These restrictions contradict the commitments made by the Taliban to the Afghan people, as well as the expectations of the international community.”
The Taliban took over in August last year. He broadly banned girls’ education when he was last in power two decades ago, but said his policies have changed. The Taliban-led administration has yet to gain international recognition.
