The United Nations has asked the Taliban for more exemptions from the NGO ban on the employment of Afghan women. The authorities will have promised new guidelines soon.
The UN humanitarian chief said on Monday that he had asked the Taliban for more exemptions from the ban on the employment of Afghan women by NGOs, adding that he hoped it “would not take long” to materialize.
“In addition to making clear our great concern about the decree, we told them: if you don’t revoke the decree now, then you will have to extend the exemptions to include all aspects of humanitarian aid,” Martin Griffiths, who was in Kabul last week with leaders of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).
On December 24, the Taliban, who since returning to power in Afghanistan in August 2021 have imposed severe restrictions on women, banned NGOs from working with Afghan women, forcing some organizations to suspend their activities. However, since then, exceptions have been announced for the health and primary education sectors.
“They said that The Taliban authorities were preparing guidelines that could clarify the role of women in humanitarian operations.”said Martin Griffiths. But “we were asked to be patient. Let’s wait and see if these guidelines come to fruition,” he added, noting that he didn’t “like to speculate.”
“Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long.because every day that passes without proper functioning of humanitarian aid is not good for the Afghan people”, he insisted.
According to the UN, which estimates the aid plan for Afghanistan in 2023 at 4.6 billion dollars, 28 million Afghans depend on this humanitarian aid.
UN urges Taliban to let women work in NGOs
Afghanistan is facing a severe winter. “The second under the Taliban. We managed to survive the last winter. I don’t know if we can do this indefinitely, not with these bans,” insisted Martin Griffiths.
Source: Observadora
