Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS
April 4, 2023
The United Nations said the Taliban move to prevent female staff from entering UN mission facilities in Afghanistan is disturbing, unacceptable, and hinders the organization’s work.
“The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the United Nations from working,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres’ spokesperson Stephane Dujarric told reporters on Tuesday. “For the Secretary-General any such ban would be unacceptable and frankly inconceivable.”
The spokesperson also said that the restriction, if confirmed, is part of a disturbing trend that will undermine the ability of aid groups to reach those most in need.
Dujarric said the UN believes the ban is nationwide. The UN, he added, is still looking into how this development would affect its operations in the country and expects to have more meetings with the de facto authorities on Wednesday “to seek some clarity.”
The UN does not have anything in writing yet from the Taliban.
UNAMA in a statement expressed serious concerns that the female national UN staff were prevented from reporting to work in Nangarhar province.
“We remind de facto authorities that United Nations entities cannot operate and deliver life-saving assistance without female staff,” UNAMA said in a tweet.
Reuters reported that all UN personnel in Afghanistan will not report to work for two days for security reasons.
“National UN staff (male and female) will not come to UN offices for 48 hours due to a threat of enforcement of a ban on female national staff in light of enforcement starting today in Jalalabad,” a senior UN official told Reuters, referring to Nangarhar’s capital.
The news agency said Taliban authorities did not respond to a request for comment as of publication.
Later in the day, the UN chief himself took to Twitter to express outrage.
“I strongly condemn the prohibition of our Afghan female colleagues from working in Afghanistan’s Nangarhar province,” Guterres said. “If this measure is not reversed, it will inevitably undermine our ability to deliver life-saving aid to the people who need it.”
Taliban authorities in December banned most female NGO employees from work, although the restrictions did not apply to UN employees. The movement has also banned girls from education beyond sixth grade. Females are also prohibited from studying and traveling without a male companion.
The Taliban could partly be reacting to a recent UN Security Council request calling on Guterres to explore ways to counter the Taliban. In March, the UN Security Council unanimously called for an independent assessment and recommendations for dealing with the Taliban in light of several challenges including those related to human rights abuses, especially treatment of women.
The UNSC session featured remarks from mostly Western leaders condemning Taliban policies toward women and calling for the world to hold them accountable for human rights violations. The UN Security Council in the same session adopted a resolution to extend the UN assistance mission in Afghanistan for another year.
The Islamic movement is taking a major risk with such a move in light of the fact the UN is one of the few groups on the ground administering aid. The UN’s massive humanitarian emergency plan for Afghanistan for 2023 has achieved less than 5% of financing needs, which totals roughly $4.6 billion annually.
The UN, meanwhile, has long warned that treatment of women was a “fundamental red line” that should not be crossed.
The Taliban are also seeking international recognition and one of the obstacles has been the movement’s human rights record.
When the Taliban seized Kabul, nearly all external aid that propped up the government was cut off – all except a few agencies like the UN. Guterres and the international body have urged other countries to lift sanctions and start releasing funds to Afghanistan.
Most recently the Taliban have stepped up efforts to enforce draconian restrictions on women including forcing them to wear the Muslim hijab. However, some experts have warned that the Taliban may go too far. Others have observed that the religious movement cares more about imposing religious laws than feeding the people of Afghanistan.
“To date, the Taliban have done nothing but alienate people and make them more distrustful and pessimistic of the ‘Islamic government.’ People can now see for themselves that the Taliban are violating rights, attempting to conceal their true identity behind Islamic rhetoric and using Islam as an impenetrable shield to justify their actions,” Amin Kawa said in a piece published on April 2 in Hasht-E-Subh Daily.
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