The Taliban have prolonged a ban on girls working for NGOs to the United Nations’ mission all through the nation, a UN spokesman introduced Tuesday, calling such an order “unacceptable.”
The United Nations Help Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) had stated earlier within the day that UN girls workers had been blocked from work in jap Nangarhar province.
“UNAMA acquired phrase of an order by the de facto authorities that bans feminine nationwide employees members of the United Nations from working,” spokesman for the secretary-general, Stephane Dujarric, instructed reporters, including that the UN had heard “from varied conduits that this is applicable to the entire nation.”
The UN had thus far been exempt from a December Taliban order for all international and home NGOs to cease girls personnel working throughout the crisis-stricken nation.
Dujarric stated no written order had but been acquired, however that the UN was to carry conferences with the Taliban on Wednesday in Kabul to “search some readability.”
For UN chief Antonio Guterres, Dujarric stated, “any such ban can be unacceptable and admittedly, inconceivable.”
“That is the most recent in a disturbing pattern undermining the flexibility of support organizations to succeed in these most in want,” he added.
After the ban introduced final yr, a number of NGOs suspended their complete operations in protest, piling additional distress on Afghanistan’s 38 million residents, half of whom are dealing with starvation in accordance with support businesses.
After days of discussions, it was agreed girls working within the well being support sector can be exempt from the decree, and UN employees, together with these within the support sector, have been by no means beholden to the ban.
Final month, nevertheless, UNAMA chief Roza Otunbayeva instructed the UN Safety Council she feared the Taliban authorities may prolong the ban imposed on girls working for NGOs to the UN’s girls employees.
The company earlier on Tuesday expressed “severe concern that feminine nationwide UN employees have been prevented from reporting to work in Nangarhar province,” in a tweet.
“We remind de facto authorities that United Nations entities can not function and ship life-saving help with out feminine employees,” it added.
Taliban authorities spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid instructed AFP earlier Tuesday he was in search of data on the matter in Nangarhar.
Since surging again to energy in August 2021 following the withdrawal of US and NATO troops, the Taliban authorities has imposed an austere interpretation of Islam.
Authorities have barred teenage women from secondary faculty, girls have been pushed out of many authorities jobs, prevented from travelling with no male family member and ordered to cowl up outdoors of the house, ideally with a burqa.
Girls have additionally been banned from universities and never allowed to enter parks or gardens.
UN particular rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan Richard Bennett stated in a current speech in Geneva that the Taliban authorities’ coverage “could quantity to the crime of gender persecution”.
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