UN aid chief Martin Griffiths met with several Taliban officials to push them to further ease the ban on female aid workers.
The UN aid chief has said the humanitarian community was talking with Taliban officials to obtain more exemptions and written guidelines to allow some female aid workers to work in Afghanistan, despite a ban on female NGO workers. Can be tried.
“I have been told by a number of Taliban leaders that the Taliban, as an administration, is working on guidelines that will provide greater clarity about the role and potential for, and hopefully freedom of, women in humanitarian work,” Martin Griffiths, the United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs told reporters on Wednesday.
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Griffiths said that – during discussions with Taliban officials in Kabul over the past few days – his message was: “If you can’t help us lift the ban, give us an exemption to allow women to work “
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She also said that she hoped that more humane sectors would be reopened for women workers.
“I think it’s really important that we keep shining a light on the process to lead to those guidelines,” he said.
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It was the second UN-led delegation this month to urge the Taliban government in Afghanistan to reverse two recent decrees that severely restricted women’s rights, including allowing women to serve in NGOs. barred from working and barred from university education.
Last week, UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed told Al Jazeera that some progress had been made on women’s rights during her talks with Taliban officials, but added that much remains to be achieved.
The high-level visits come amid widespread criticism of the ruling Taliban for banning women from universities and non-governmental organizations last month.
Taliban officials have claimed that the two bans were imposed because women were not following rules on wearing the hijab, a charge denied by aid workers and university students.
The Taliban’s ban on women working in NGOs has prompted major international aid agencies to suspend operations in Afghanistan. It also raised fears that millions of people would be deprived of vital services.
In recent weeks, the authorities have allowed women to work only in the health sector.
Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban government has increasingly excluded women from public life, banning them from secondary education and public sector work, as well as from parks and bathrooms.
Griffiths promised that the global humanitarian community will push to deploy female workers when it comes to delivering aid to the poverty-stricken country.
“Wherever there is an in-principle possibility for us to provide humanitarian assistance and protection, which means accompanying women, we will do so,” he said.
But at this stage getting more freedom for women to work in all humanitarian fields was an important task.
“We don’t have time. Winter is with us, people are dying, there is famine,” he said.
“We need a decision now, which is why I think these practical exceptions that we’re talking about are so important.”
uncertain outcome
However, Griffiths cautioned that the final result was still not certain.
He also pointed out that, as well as officials in Kabul, it would be important to talk with provincial governors and leaders in the southern city of Kandahar – home to the Taliban’s supreme spiritual leader, who makes final decisions on major decisions.
“It is very important to engage with the Taliban movement as a whole, including … with the Taliban in Kandahar and at the provincial level,” he said.
Although he said the UN would continue to try and operate wherever it could in the country, there was a concern that international donors would not want to commit to the huge financial cost of the aid, estimated at around $4.6 billion per year.
Yet the Taliban have dismissed UN claims that economic problems will lead to the collapse of the country as “not true”.
TO: UNOCHA
The claim of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA) that the system will collapse due to economic problems is not correct.
1/3— Zabihullah (.. Zabihullah M) (@Zabehullah_M33) January 25, 2023
“Islamic Emirates [the Taliban’s name for Afghanistan] Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid wrote on Twitter: “It has deep roots, it is not a system that relies on foreign aid to collapse due to economic problems.”
“Of course, any country that has experienced so many long wars and invasions will face economic problems for some time, but the Islamic Emirate is determined to revive all the country’s economic resources, rebuild the economy, and over the past year and a half . Big steps have been taken over the years which are still going on.”
Aid agencies say Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with more than half of its 38 million population hungry and nearly four million children suffering from malnutrition.
According to the United Nations, 28 million people were in need of aid, with six million on the brink of famine.