Kabul:
The head of a major aid group that suspended work in Afghanistan after the Taliban banned female NGO workers said Thursday he would write to senior government figures in Kandahar asking them to change policies.
Jan Egeland, the secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, told Reuters it was crucial to engage with leaders in the southern city, home of Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada.
“The letter I am drafting will say: we know you, we have worked for many years in … areas controlled by the Taliban. You know us.
“You know that our female employees have always worn the hijab. They have had… a male companion on extended trips. Your people are suffering from your ban on female employees.”
Last month, the Taliban government ordered all local and foreign aid agencies to stop employing female workers until further notice.
It said the move, which was condemned worldwide, was justified because some women had not adhered to the Taliban’s interpretation of the Islamic dress code.
Many NGOs suspended their activities saying they needed female workers to reach women in the conservative country.
Egeland, who visited the capital Kabul this week, said officials there had told him they favored women working in NGOs, but that the order came from Kandahar. Taliban government spokesmen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Egeland said he arranged meetings with the Ulema Council, made up of religious scholars, and the provincial governor in Kandahar because it was not possible for foreign humanitarian organizations to meet Akhundzada directly.
But after bad weather halted flights, he said he would write instead and try to arrange online meetings.
He said he was pleased with some signs of flexibility in health and other areas, where some female and male employees were working side by side. But he called for a complete reversal of the ban.
“Our male employees can’t go to widows, single mothers and their children, to all the vulnerable women’s groups here and have been prevented from doing all the work,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is being published from a syndicated feed.)
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