Monitoring Desk
KABUL: At least three leading international Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) have partially resumed life-saving work in Afghanistan after assurances from the Taliban government that country’s women can continue working in the health sector.
Since the Taliban returning to power in August 2021, they imposed restrictions on Afghan women, effectively squeezing them out of public life. Hundreds of world aid agencies have been vital in trying to fix one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with half of Afghanistan’s 38m population hungry and three million children at risk of malnutrition.
Three NGOs
Save the Children, CARE and International Rescue Committee (IRC) had stopped their operations in December 2022 in protest against the government banning Afghan women from aid work. The CARE and IRC have confirmed they have started work with women staff in the health sector of the country.
The international community has been urging the Afghan government to reverse the order banning women in the aid sector. The ban was likely to have consequences on aid flows coming into the country.
Spokesman for the ministry of economy Afghanistan, Abdul Rahman Habib, who ordered the ban, told AFP that it was need for the society that women were allowed to work in health sector of the country. “We need them to support the malnourished children and other women who need health services. The women staff are working in line with the religious and cultural values.”
Two aid officials said negotiations were continuing with the authorities concerned to allow women to work in other sectors, including sanitation, education, water, and food distribution.
A senior Taliban official while speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said the NGOs would have to share reasons for employing women.
He further said that the ban was imposed as women were not observing the rules issued by the ultra-conservative authorities on being accompanied by a male relative while travelling or wearing hijab. But the aid officials have dismissed these charges, insisting their organisations had already segregated men and women employees and that women were wearing hijabs.
The ban was one of two orders made in rapid succession in December, after the authorities had first barred women from university education. Secondary school education has been banned for girls while many women have lost government jobs. It is to mention here that weomen have also been barred from going to gyms, parks and public baths.
