WASHINGTON: Months after banning Afghan women and girls from work for the United Nations (UN) and other aid agencies, Taliban officials have told aid employees that new guidelines allowing women and girls to return to humanitarian work are almost complete.
According to the Voice of America, Jon Egeland, Secretary-General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), tweeted after meeting Taliban officials in their stronghold in southern Afghanistan, “Taliban leaders said ‘guidelines’ that will allow women and girls back to work and resume girls’ education are ‘nearly completed.’’
The Taliban haven’t said when the new rules will go into effect. It is unclear whether the new guidelines will permit women and girls to return to jobs in public service.
A Taliban authority who met Egeland said aid agencies should expand their operations because “corruption and insecurity have been completely terminated” in Afghanistan.
Immediately after seizing power in 2021, the Taliban fired almost all female government employees except in the health and education sectors. No woman serves in the Taliban’s interim cabinet.
The Taliban leadership has closed secondary schools for girls for nearly two years, though it has said the restriction is temporary and will be lifted after new guidelines are completed.
Until the latest guidelines are announced, some female aid employees could return to work under an interim circumstance.
“We’ve initial agreement of looking for interim solutions so that our brave professional female colleagues can come back to work,” Egeland said in a video, adding that the NRC wouldn’t work with male-only staff.
The 28 million Afghans in urgent need of aid are increasingly neglected.
We urgently need political and human rights breakthroughs in Afghanistan for women; greater international diplomatic engagement; and donors to resume large scale aid according to humanitarian principles. pic.twitter.com/K3AxwdY3ii
— Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) May 24, 2023
Egeland said that since the restrictions on women’s work, the NRC has downgraded its activities in Afghanistan by 40 per cent.
