Senior UN officials and dozens of NGOs operating in Afghanistan are meeting on Sunday to discuss the way forward following the Taliban ordered all NGOs to stop working with women, they told the AFP.
On Saturday, the Afghan Ministry of Economy ordered all non-governmental organizations to stop working with women or risk having their operating license suspended. It was unclear whether the directive applied to foreign female NGO staff.
Wear you hijab
In the letter issued to local and international NGOs, the ministry explains that it took this decision following receiving “serious complaints” that women working in these NGOs did not respect the wearing of the “Islamic hijab”. In Afghanistan women are forced to cover their face and their entire body.
“A meeting of the Humanitarian Country Team (HCT) is scheduled for Sunday to consult and discuss how to address this issue,” Tapiwa Goma, information officer for the Office of Humanitarian Affairs, told AFP. coordination of United Nations humanitarian affairs. The HCT is made up of senior UN officials and representatives of dozens of Afghan and international NGOs who coordinate the distribution of aid across the country.
“Retreat” of the country
The meeting will discuss whether to suspend all aid work following the Taliban’s latest directive, several NGO officials said. “The UN will seek to meet with Taliban leaders to seek clarification on the reported order,” the UN said in a statement, while condemning the decree.
She reminds the Afghan authorities that by excluding women “systematically from all aspects of public and political life”, they are “setting the country backwards by undermining efforts to bring peace and meaningful stability to the country”.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned him on Saturday once morest the “devastating” consequences of such a measure, saying he was “very worried” regarding its consequences on the distribution by women of “vital humanitarian aid for millions of Afghanistan”.
Heavy reliance on humanitarian aid
Dozens of organizations work in remote areas of Afghanistan and many of their employees are women. Several of them warned that a ban on female staff would hamper their work.
The ban comes at a time when millions of Afghans depend on humanitarian aid provided by international donors through an extensive network of NGOs. According to the United Nations and aid agencies, more than half of the country’s 38 million people need humanitarian aid during the harsh winter.
