The Afghan government’s decision to ban women from working in NGOs does not please Paris. France thus denounced on Monday the “obscurantism” of the Taliban.
“This new ban against women (…) manifests, once again (…) the obscurantism of the Taliban who choose the systematic exclusion of women from Afghan society”, specified the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, judging “ this relentlessness against them (…) intolerable”.
Several NGOs on the way out
Paris “condemns in the strongest terms” a decision which “seriously hinders the delivery of humanitarian aid, to the detriment of the Afghan population (…) while the country is experiencing a serious economic and humanitarian crisis”.
Several foreign organizations suspended their activities in Afghanistan on Sunday after NGOs were banned from working with women. The Afghan Ministry of Economy on Saturday ordered all non-governmental organizations to stop working with women or risk having their operating license suspended. On the other hand, it was not specified whether the directive concerned foreign female staff of NGOs.
In the letter sent to local and international NGOs, the ministry explains that it took this decision after receiving “serious complaints” that the women working there did not respect the wearing of the “Islamic hijab”.
The noose around women has tightened in recent months. The Taliban, who returned to power in August 2021, banned them less than a week ago from attending public and private universities, for the same reasons of dress code not being respected. They had already excluded them from secondary schools.