See What NGOs Did After the Taliban prohibited women, NGOs left Afghanistan.
See What NGOs Did After the Taliban prohibited women, NGOs left Afghanistan.
Three of the biggest international aid groups stopped working in Afghanistan on Sunday. This was because the Taliban banned women from working for non-government organizations.
Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council, and CARE all said that without women working for them, they couldn't help children, women, and men in Afghanistan who were in desperate need.
Women don't wear the hijab correctly, which is why it was made illegal a day ago.
In very bad humanitarian situations, three non-governmental organizations (NGOs) help with health, education, child protection, nutrition, and other things.
Neil Turner, who is in charge of the Norwegian Refugee Council in Afghanistan, said, "We follow all the cultural rules, and we couldn't do our job without our hardworking female employees, who are very important for us to be able to help women who are in desperate need." Sunday, the Associated Press said that 468 women work for the group in the country.
In August 2021, the Taliban made things hard for the Afghan economy and changed the country's direction. This put millions of people in poverty and caused them to go hungry. Almost overnight, aid from abroad stopped.
Sanctions on Taliban leaders, a ban on bank exchanges, and a freeze on billions of dollars in Afghan treasury accounts have already cut off access to international institutions and foreign capital that helped the country's aid-dependent economy before the US and NATO troops left.
In an interview with the AP last month, Martin Schuepp, a senior official at the Red Cross, said that as living conditions get worse next year, more Afghans will find it hard to stay alive. and had faith during the second winter when the Taliban were in charge.
The US has warned that the ban on NGOs will stop millions of people from getting help that could save their lives.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Saturday, "Women are at the heart of humanitarian work around the world." "This decision could hurt the people of Afghanistan in a big way."
Antonio Guterres, who is the Secretary-General of the United Nations, said that he was very worried about the news that voluntary organizations would be banned.
In a statement, he said, "The United Nations and its partners, such as international NGOs, are helping more than 28 million Afghans who depend on humanitarian aid to live."
The International Rescue Committee said it was worried about the Taliban's decision and added that more than 3,000 of its workers in Afghanistan are women. It's not clear yet if she may have to stop operations.
Saturday, the Minister of Economy, Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, sent a letter to the nonprofits with the order. He said that in Afghanistan, the license of any group that doesn't follow this order will be taken away.
The order from the Ministry of Economy comes just a few days after the Taliban banned female students from all universities in Afghanistan. This caused a lot of trouble in other countries and protests in Afghanistan's biggest cities.
At midnight on Saturday, people in the western city of Herat, where protesters were first scared away with cold water, opened their windows and chanted "Allahu Akbar" (God is great) in support of the students. women.
Also on Saturday, hundreds of male students at Mirwais Neeka University in the city of Kandahar in the south of the country skipped their last exams. One of them told the Associated Press that when they were leaving the exam room, the Taliban tried to break up the crowd.
"They tried to break us up, so we chanted slogans, and then more people joined us, so we got bigger," said a man who only gave his last name as Akhbari. "The Taliban thought we were protesting because we wouldn't move, so they started shooting into the air. I saw two people getting beat up, and one of them got hit in the head."
Ataullah Zaid, who works for the governor of Kandahar province, said that the protest did not happen. He said that there are some people who pretend to be students and teachers, but they are stopped by other students and security officers.
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