UN Afghan staff told to stay home as Taliban signals UN female ban By Reuters

By Michelle Nichols and Charlotte Greenfield

UNITED NATIONS/KABUL (Reuters) -The United Nations instructed some 3,300 Afghan workers to not come to work in Afghanistan for the following two days after the Taliban authorities signaled on Tuesday that they might implement a ban on Afghan girls working for the world physique.

U.N. officers in Afghanistan “acquired phrase of an order by the de facto authorities that bans feminine nationwide workers members of the United Nations from working,” U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric instructed reporters in New York.

The U.N. is trying into impacts and can meet with Afghan international ministry officers in Kabul on Wednesday to hunt additional readability, he mentioned. About 400 Afghan girls work for the U.N.

Two U.N. sources instructed Reuters that considerations over enforcement had prompted the group to ask all workers – female and male – to not come to work for 48 hours. Friday and Saturday are usually weekend days in Afghanistan, which means U.N. workers wouldn’t return till Sunday on the earliest.

The U.N. mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) earlier on Tuesday expressed concern that feminine workers within the jap province of Nangarhar had been stopped from reporting to work.

“There was a way more official communication made in (Nangarhar provincial capital) Jalalabad. We have been instructed by means of varied conduits that this utilized to the entire nation,” Dujarric, including there was nothing writing.

“Feminine workers members are important for the United Nations to ship life-saving help,” he mentioned, including that some 23 million folks – greater than half Afghanistan’s inhabitants – want humanitarian help.

The Taliban administration and the Afghan data ministry didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark.

FUNDING CUTS?

U.N. Secretary-Normal Antonio Guterres condemned the ban enforcement in Nangarhar, posting on Twitter: “If this measure shouldn’t be reversed, it would inevitably undermine our potential to ship life-saving help to the individuals who want it.”

The Taliban administration, which seized energy as U.S.-led forces withdrew from Afghanistan after 20 years of warfare, says it respects girls’s rights in accordance with its strict interpretation of Islamic regulation.

Since toppling the Western-backed authorities in Kabul, the Taliban have tightened controls over girls’s entry to public life, together with barring girls from college and shutting most women’ excessive faculties.

In December, Taliban authorities stopped most feminine humanitarian help staff from working, which help staff say has made it tougher to succeed in girls in want and may lead donors to carry again funding.

The restrictions didn’t initially apply to the U.N. and another worldwide organizations. In January, U.N. Deputy Secretary-Normal Amina Mohammed flagged considerations that authorities may subsequent limit Afghan girls working at worldwide organizations.

It was not instantly clear whether or not international embassies in Kabul had acquired related directions on feminine workers.

A ban on Afghan feminine U.N. staff may pose main challenges to continued U.N. operations in Afghanistan. The founding U.N. Constitution states that no restrictions be positioned on the eligibility of women and men to work for the U.N.

Support officers have additionally flagged the chance that donor international locations will cut back funding resulting from frustration over restrictions on girls as different worldwide crises take maintain.

The U.N. has made its single-largest nation help attraction ever, asking for $4.6 billion in 2023 to ship help in Afghanistan. To date it’s lower than 5% funded.