World News | UN: Ban Afghan female staff from working in eastern provinces

ISLAMABAD, April 4 (AP) — Taliban authorities have banned female U.N. Afghan employees from working in eastern Afghanistan, U.N. officials said Tuesday.

The UN mission has expressed “serious concern” about the ban on its female staff from reporting to work in Nangarhar province.

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“We remind de facto authorities that UN entities cannot function and deliver life-saving aid without women staff,” the world body said in a tweet.

A Taliban spokesman had no immediate comment and it was unclear whether the ban extended beyond Nangarhar province.

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Although the Taliban initially promised a more moderate rule than during the previous administration, the Taliban have implemented draconian measures since they seized power in 2021 after US and NATO forces pulled out of Afghanistan after 20 years of war.

Girls are barred from education beyond the sixth grade, and women are barred from working, studying, traveling unaccompanied by men, or even going to parks. Women must also cover themselves from head to toe.

Afghan women are also banned from working in national and international NGOs, disrupting the delivery of humanitarian aid.

Women working for the United Nations are exempt from the NGO ban, but the UN is concerned that women working for the UN could be targeted.

UN spokesman Stephen Dujarric told reporters on Tuesday that Secretary-General Antonio Guterres had said that “any such ban would be unacceptable and, frankly, inconceivable.”

He also said U.N. officials had learned through “various sources” that the ban applied to the entire country.

“We are still looking at how this development will affect our operations in the country and we anticipate additional meetings with the de facto authorities in Kabul tomorrow where we will seek some clarification.”

Dujarric said female staff are critical to carrying out life-saving UN operations on the ground, saying that out of a population of about 40 million, “we are trying to reach 23 million men, women and children with humanitarian assistance.”

UNAMA, the United Nations special political mission in Afghanistan, is headed by Roza Otunbayeva, the former president and foreign minister of the Kyrgyz Republic. She was appointed by the Secretary-General in coordination with the UN Security Council. Dujarric said the Taliban had taken no action against senior UN leadership.

The Taliban’s restrictions in Afghanistan, particularly bans on education and the work of NGOs, have drawn strong international condemnation.

But the Taliban showed no signs of backing down, claiming the ban was temporarily suspended, allegedly because women were not wearing the Islamic hijab or hijab properly and were not adhering to gender segregation rules. (Associated Press)

(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)