KABUL, Afghanistan — The highest U.N. official in Kabul met with a Taliban authorities minister in Afghanistan’s capital on Monday, following a call by the nation’s new rulers to bar ladies from working for non-governmental organizations, the U.N. mission mentioned.
The measure — the most recent in restrictions on ladies’s rights and freedoms in Afghanistan — was introduced on Saturday by Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, the Taliban financial system minister. It was imposed allegedly as a result of some feminine NGO staff in Afghanistan weren’t sporting the Islamic headband, or hijab, accurately.
Hanif on the time mentioned that any group discovered not complying with the order could have its license revoked.
The U.N. mission in Afghanistan mentioned in a tweet that its performing head, Ramiz Alakbarov, met with Hanif on Monday and referred to as for a reversal of the ban.
“Hundreds of thousands of Afghans want humanitarian help and eradicating obstacles is significant,” the U.N. mentioned, with out offering extra particulars in regards to the assembly.
Because the ban was introduced, 4 main worldwide help companies stopped their operations in Afghanistan, saying they might not successfully attain individuals in determined want with out their feminine workforce.
The companies — Save the Kids, the Worldwide Rescue Committee, the Norwegian Refugee Council and CARE — have been offering healthcare, schooling, little one safety and diet providers and help amid plummeting humanitarian circumstances.
The Taliban takeover in mid-August 2021 as U.S. and NATO forces have been within the ultimate weeks of their pullout after 20 years of warfare, despatched Afghanistan’s financial system right into a tailspin and reworked the nation, driving hundreds of thousands into poverty and starvation. Overseas help stopped virtually in a single day.
Sanctions on the Taliban rulers, together with a halt on financial institution transfers and the freezing of billions in Afghanistan’s international belongings have already restricted entry to international establishments. Funds from help companies helped prop up the nation’s aid-dependent financial system earlier than the Taliban takeover.
Qatar, which performed a key function in facilitating the negotiations that led to the withdrawal of U.S. forces from Afghanistan final 12 months, expressed its concern Sunday in regards to the NGO ban imposed “underneath the pretext” that some feminine staff didn’t adhere to the Islamic gown code set by the federal government for girls.
The Group of Islamic Cooperation mentioned the elemental rights of Afghan ladies had been dealt but “one other extreme blow” following the order. Its secretary-general, Hissein Brahim Taha, mentioned the transfer mirrored a “willful coverage … apparently in search of to additional influence Afghan ladies’s rights.”
Earlier final week, Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities stopped college schooling for girls, sparking worldwide outrage and demonstrations in Afghan cities.
Safety in Kabul was intensified in current days, with an elevated variety of checkpoints, armored automobiles, Taliban particular forces and armed officers on the streets.
The Taliban authorities’s Inside Ministry and the Kabul police chief weren’t instantly out there for touch upon the tighter safety.
