UN asks Taliban to lift bans on female education, work for aid agencies

During a meeting with Mohammad Nadeem, the Taliban’s appointed minister of education, on Saturday in Kabul, the top UN representative in Afghanistan demanded that the restrictions on female employment and education be immediately lifted.

“A new phase of the crisis is beginning in Afghanistan.” All Afghans would suffer because of the Taliban’s ban on female employment and education. In a meeting with Moh. Nadeem, the Minister of Higher Education for the de facto authorities, today, UN envoy Potzel Markus demanded the bans be lifted immediately, according to a tweet from the UNAM in Afghanistan.

Human Rights Watch reports that after the Taliban seized power in August 2021, they immediately enacted laws that severely restricted basic rights, particularly for women and girls.

The Taliban banned women from working in humanitarian nongovernmental groups and restricted female higher education last month (NGOs). These actions have been deemed a severe setback for the nation as a whole and vulnerable populations, including women and children, according to human rights experts and members of the international community.

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) members expressed their profound alarm in the final week of December in response to allegations that the Taliban have barred women and children from attending institutions.

The UNSC members also expressed grave concern about the prohibition on female employees of NGOs and international organisations from reporting to work. They said that this action will have an immediate and major impact on the delivery of supplies and health care, as well as UN and other humanitarian operations in the nation.

In addition, the members stressed that these limitations go against the Taliban’s promises to the Afghan people as well as the expectations of the international community.

According to a report from earlier this week, the UN Security Council will meet behind closed doors the next week to examine the Taliban’s decision to forbid women from working for NGOs in Afghanistan.

The United Arab Emirates (UAE) delegation to the UN announced on Twitter that Japan and the UAE have asked for a closed-door meeting of the UNSC on January 13 to review choices made by the Taliban.