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KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – AUGUST 15: Taliban take to the streets during a national holiday celebrating the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A year after the Taliban retook Kabul, cementing their rule of Afghanistan after a two-decade insurgency, the country is beset by economic and humanitarian crises. Western governments have frozen billions of dollars in Afghan assets as it presses the Taliban to honor unmet promises on security, governance and human rights, including allowing all girls to be educated. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)
UN caves to Taliban in Kabul

Exclusive

Friday 5 May 2023

UN caves to Taliban in Kabul

Senior Reporter

Will Brown
KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – AUGUST 15: Taliban take to the streets during a national holiday celebrating the first anniversary of the Taliban takeover on August 15, 2022 in Kabul, Afghanistan. A year after the Taliban retook Kabul, cementing their rule of Afghanistan after a two-decade insurgency, the country is beset by economic and humanitarian crises. Western governments have frozen billions of dollars in Afghan assets as it presses the Taliban to honor unmet promises on security, governance and human rights, including allowing all girls to be educated. (Photo by Paula Bronstein /Getty Images)

A de facto ban on women in the UN’s Afghanistan offices is now in force

Two of the most prominent United Nations organisations have bowed to Taliban pressure for male-only offices in Afghanistan, Tortoise has learnt. Unesco and Unicef have outraged fellow aid workers in Kabul who fear the organisations are normalising the Taliban’s extreme gender-based restrictions.

No women allowed. In early April, the Taliban banned Afghan women from working for the global body. Initially, the aid organisations presented a united front – everyone sent all their male and female Afghan staff home while they weighed their options until 5 May.

But Tortoise understands that the UN culture and education body, and the fund for children, have bowed to the Taliban’s demands.

  • Afghan men working for the organisations on local contracts have been told to come back to work.
  • Their work has been deemed ‘critical’;
  • while women have been told to stay at home.

Fragmented response. The news comes as at least 125 UN staff members signed an anonymous internal letter saying that the dangerously fragmented and “incoherent” response to the ban on female staff risked undermining the entire humanitarian response to the country of 40 million. 

“One agency has since deemed all male staff  ‘critical’ and offered female staff to return to work without any assurances for their safety, against the recommendation of the UN country team,” the letter said, although it did not mention agencies by name.

  • The agency which offered female staff to return to work with no safety assurances is Unicef, Tortoise understands.

“Through its incoherent approach, the United Nations is sending the message to all its staff that female staff do not matter,” the letter continues.

 “It is sending a message to the world that gender apartheid is merely an inconvenient operational environment or a simple cultural difference.”

What does this all mean for the millions of Afghan women who desperately need help? It will be even harder to get them aid. Given the Taliban’s gender-based restrictions, it is almost impossible to reach half the Afghan population without female aid workers.

The UN said in a statement from Kabul late on Friday that the Taliban’s de facto ban on women working for its agencies “seriously undermines our work, including our ability to reach people in need”. The statement condemned the ban as unlawful under international law but insisted the agencies’ work had to continue, adding: “We cannot disengage despite the challenges.”

Unesco in Afghanistan told Tortoise it has given no “no gender-differentiating instructions to its staff”.

Unicef said this was not an accurate representation of the situation on the ground.

Well placed UN sources strongly disputed both these claims.

Further Listening