EDITORIAL: Helping people in crisis situations, perhaps, has never been as hard for the UN as it is in the Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. Last December the authorities banned women from working for domestic or international non-governmental organisations.
Earlier this month, i.e., on April 4, the ban was extended to UN offices across the country. Expressing dismay in a strongly-worded statement on Tuesday, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan said it cannot comply with the ban unlawful under the international law, including the UN Charter.
“Through this ban”, averred the statement, “the Taliban de facto authorities seek to force the United Nations into having to make an appalling choice between staying and delivering support of the Afghan people and standing by the norms and principles we are duty-bound to uphold”. The mission head, Roza Otunbayeva, has initiated an “operational review” to decide the next step, it added.
The UN mission, of course, cannot make a compromise on its principles by allowing the Taliban to keep women out of the workforce. All its local employee--some 3,300, including 600 women--have been ordered not to report to their respective offices until further notice.
All NGOs have already suspended their operations in the country, rendering thousands of men and women jobless at a time half of the population faces hunger amidst punishing sanctions brought by the interim government’s rigid, retrogressive policies.
Worst affected are women. After over two decades of wars and internecine conflicts, many of them are the sole breadwinners of their families. But the Taliban insist on confining women to the four walls of the home, thereby penalising them and their families.
Following some recent discussions, nonetheless, they are said to have agreed to allow women to work in the health sector, which is hardly a concession considering that the Taliban do not like male doctors and workers in the sector to provide treatment to female patients. That merits the question, if secondary schools and colleges for girls remain shut where female doctors would come from?
Notably, after the Taliban took control of Kabul in August 2021, their spokesman had assured the international community that women will have the right to be educated up to university level, and to work.
For a while it seemed this time the Taliban would be different from their first stint in power – 1996 to 2001. But it did not take long for them first to close down all secondary schools for girls and ban admissions in higher education institutions, followed by restrictions that say a male relative must accompany women travelling more than 72 kilometers. Moreover, women without a male chaperon cannot board domestic or international flights.
Those protesting against such oppressive measures have been dealt with severely. But the Kabul government cannot ask the UN mission to throw out its local female staff without jeopardising the humanitarian aid it along with its partner organisations provides to millions of Afghans struggling to survive.
Hopefully, the latest decree will soon be rescinded. The dialogue door should remain open to help remove general restrictions on women, and create a better environment for all Afghans.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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