Taliban orders NGOs to stop women from coming to work

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Afghanistan’s Taliban-run authorities on Saturday ordered all native and international nongovernmental organizations to stop feminine workers from reporting to work, within the newest restrictive transfer towards ladies’s rights and freedoms within the nation.

The order was made in a letter written in Persian by Financial system Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, Abdur Rahman Habib, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s Financial Ministry, informed NBC Information.

Rahman stated that every one nongovernmental organizations needed to register with the ministry, and the ministry had “acquired complaints” that some ladies had not adopted the prescribed costume code for girls showing in public, a code derived from the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic regulation, or Shariah.

Taliban officers introduced in Could that ladies leaving the house have been to cowl themselves in head-to-toe loose-fitting clothes that covers the face, comparable to a burqa, a conventional all-enveloping article of clothes that features a mesh panel for the face. In accordance with the edict, solely a girl’s eyes needs to be seen.

Rahman additionally stated that the letter warned the organizations whose feminine workers failed to stick to this commonplace would have their licenses revoked.

It was not clear if the order additionally utilized to United Nations businesses, which have a large presence in Afghanistan. 

Nevertheless, every other nongovernmental organizations which have an lively presence in Afghanistan, which has been embroiled in an economic and social crisis because the Taliban took over in August 2021 following the withdrawal of U.S. and NATO troops.

The transfer was condemned by Paul Klouman Bekken, the cost d’affaires for Norway, which funds humanitarian help to the nation and hosted talks between Taliban and civil society members in January.

“The ban on feminine workers in NGOs have to be reversed instantly,” he tweeted. “Along with being a blow to ladies’s rights, this transfer will exacerbate the humanitarian disaster and harm essentially the most weak Afghans.”

The order got here days after the Taliban used the same pretext to order the closure of universities to ladies, prompting robust world condemnation and sparking some protests and heavy criticism inside Afghanistan. The Taliban additionally claimed that college students have been mixing between genders.

Overseas governments, together with Muslim-majority Saudi Arabia and Turkey, condemned the college ban, which additionally led to criticism and protests inside Afghanistan.

Within the western metropolis of Herat on Saturday, Taliban forces used water cannons to disperse ladies protesting the ban on college schooling, Reuters reported.

About two dozen ladies have been heading to the provincial governor’s home to protest the ban, chanting: “Schooling is our proper,” after they have been pushed again by safety forces firing the water cannon, eyewitnesses informed informed Reuters.

Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Peshawar and Leila Sackur from London.

Related Press and Reuters contributed.