KABUL (Pajhwok): United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) executive director Dr. Natalia Kanem has strongly condemned recent decrees by the Taliban banning women from higher education and from working with national and international humanitarian organizations.
In a statement posted on UNFPA twitter handle, Dr. Kanem said these decisions violated international human rights law and denied women and girls in Afghanistan the freedom and ability to make their own choices and decisions, depriving them of their autonomy and the rights to which they are entitled as human beings.
“By denying women and girls the right to education, the de facto authorities are denying the contributions of half the Afghan population to the country’s national development, economic growth, and stability,” she said.
She said women were also key to an effective humanitarian response. “Each month, 24,000 women give birth in hard-to-reach areas of Afghanistan, and these women need health services to deliver safely”.
UNFPA, the United Nations reproductive health agency counts on female humanitarian workers to deliver life-saving health and protection services to women and girls in Afghanistan.
Over the past year, they and other partners helped UNFPA reach 4.3 million Afghans with essential reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health services, and nearly one million people with psychosocial support services, life-skills training and information, she said.
“UNFPA stands in solidarity with the people of Afghanistan, as we have done for the past 46 years. We call on the de facto authorities to allow women and girls to return to school and to allow women working for non-governmental organizations to continue their life-saving work for the millions of Afghan people in dire need.”
The Ministry of Economy (MoE) on December 24 asked to all national and international NGOs to suspend the jobs of their female workers until further notice, saying it had received ‘serious complaints’ that the females did not observe Islamic hijab properly.
The Ministry of Higher Education has already banned female students from attending their university classes on the same charge.
These decisions have drawn reactions on domestic and international levels and the government was asked to reverse these decisions.
In a reaction to the latest ban, International Rescue Committee (IRC), Norwegian Refugees Council (NRC), the CARE international, World Vision and Catholic Relief Services (CRS) organizations suspended their operations in the county.
aw/ma
