The Afghan government on Saturday banned women from working in local and international humanitarian organizations, officials said, a move that threatens to threaten billions of dollars in aid that has helped Afghanistan ward off hunger amid a backdrop of famine. economic collapse.
The ban is the latest blow to women’s rights under the Taliban government seems to value the exclusion of women from public life about keeping the country from sinking deeper into a grave humanitarian disaster that threatens the lives of millions of Afghans.
The ordinance, published in a letter from the Department of Economy and confirmed to The New York Times by a spokesman for the department, warns that the department will revoke the operating license of any organization that fails to comply. . It is not clear whether the ban applies to UN aid agencies, and to all women, or only to Afghan nationals working in aid organisations.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement that the United Nations would seek to meet with the Taliban leadership to better understand the decree.
“Any such order would violate women’s most basic rights, as well as blatantly violate humanitarian principles,” statement read. “This latest decision will only further hurt the most vulnerable, especially women and girls.”
Since The Western-backed government collapsed last year and the economy collapsed almost overnight, Afghanistan’s old economy malnutrition crisis seriously deteriorated. Across the country, millions of Afghans lost their jobs; rising food prices beyond the ability of many families to pay; and emaciated children flood the malnourished clinics.
Today, nearly 20 million people — more than half the population — are facing potentially life-threatening levels of food insecurity, according to the report. UN analysis. Of those, six million are on the verge of starvation.
Over the past year, billions of dollars in aid from humanitarian groups have saved the country from mass starvation, provided free food to millions of families that would otherwise go hungry and provided medical care. saving the lives of millions of malnourished children.
According to aid workers, many humanitarian aid organizations see the move to ban female staff as a red line within the Taliban government, which could shut down their operations across the country, as donors and decision-makers balked at the overt discrimination against women in their ranks.
Taliban Takeover in Afghanistan
Closing operations would effectively destroy Afghanistan’s aid ecosystem and cut off the lifeline to record 28.3 million Afghans — or two-thirds of the population — is expected to need some form of humanitarian assistance next year, aid workers said.
Even for groups that remain in Afghanistan, the loss of female humanitarian workers could seriously impede aid delivery, especially to women in need. In many parts of the country, women often only interact with men in the household and are unable to directly receive aid – such as food packages or medical care – from male aid workers.
Hours after the decree was announced, several international aid groups discussed the immediate suspension of their activities in the country until further notice. John Morse, country director of DACAAR, a Danish nonprofit, said he would close his office on Sunday to discuss the consequences of the ban with his senior leadership.
“I think the big discussion is solidarity” between NGOs and trying to pressure the Afghan government to reverse the decree, he said.
The decree comes less than a week after the Afghan government banned women from attending public and private universities, dashing the hopes of millions of girls, who have witnessed their rights. which they grew up under the American occupation has been gradually abolished since the government was backed by the West. fall. In March, the new government also refused a promise to allow girls to attend public high schools.
The moves further signal that the Taliban’s leadership has cast aside any peaceful intentions and is determined to restore the hardline rule that the group upheld during its first tenure in power in the 1990s.
Both announcements also emphasize how ideological hardliners in the Taliban movementincluding its supreme leader, Sheikh Haibatullah Akhundzada, has increasingly exerted his influence on those who urge moderation to maintain engagement with the international community.
Arousing fears that the authorities plan to further push back against women’s rights, security forces in the capital, Kabul, this week held meetings with school principals, teachers and administrators. private education centers, instructing them to close winter courses for all girls – including those in primary schools – and send their female teachers home, according to six education experts. education across five districts in Kabul.
Schools are currently on winter break, but many students are already taking additional courses at private schools and education centers before the spring semester begins next year.
When asked about the meetings, a spokesman for the Ministry of Education denied other reports that the government had officially banned girls from attending primary school. But the meetings raised concerns that the Afghan government could lay the groundwork to further restrict girls’ education next year.
Taken together, Saturday’s ban on women going to college and the ban on working in NGOs is a heartbreaking blow to women across the country, many of whom have worked to asserted its public role in Afghan society after the first Taliban regime was overthrown. in 2001.
For many Afghan women who work for aid groups, their work is testament to that two-decade-long war. But their income has also become a lifeline for their families amid the economic downturn and widespread unemployment.
“I am shocked,” said Maghfira Ahmadi, who works in the finance and administration department of Doctors Without Borders in Kunduz, a commercial hub in northern Afghanistan.
Ms. Ahmadi said she has been the sole breadwinner of the family since the Western-backed government collapsed last year and the new government stopped paying the pension of her father, a retired public school teacher.
“I am very worried about the future,” she said. “I used to pay everything for my family with my salary, but I didn’t know what would happen to us.”
