Three foreign aid organizations, including Save the Children, announced on Sunday they would temporarily halt their work in Afghanistan. They do this because the Taliban has since Saturday banned all non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from using female employees.
“We cannot adequately reach the children, women and men in Afghanistan who are in desperate need without our female staff,” the three NGOs said in a joint statement. She also says the millions of Afghans in need since August last year would not have been reached without the efforts of their female employees.
The fundamentalist Taliban government threatens to withdraw the licenses of NGOs that do not respect the new rules. Some female employees do not follow the strict interpretation of the Islamic dress code, is the reasoning. There were going to be a lot of complaints about it. More than 180 national and international NGOs are active in Afghanistan.
It is unclear whether the order also extends to United Nations (UN) agencies, which have large staffs in Afghanistan. The UN is not on the NGO list, but it often contracts with Afghanistan-registered NGOs to carry out humanitarian work. Aid workers say female workers are key to ensuring women have access to help.
Small-scale demonstrations against the ban took place in the western city of Herat on Saturday. The police tried to disperse the demonstrators with water cannons and batons.
Since the Taliban returned to power last August, girls and women have been increasingly disenfranchised. This also causes criticism in Islamic countries such as Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.
