UN: 3,300 Afghan staff stay home over Taliban ban on women

UNITED NATIONS — The United Nations said the 3,330 Afghan men and women it employs stayed home for a second day Thursday to protest the Taliban’s ban on U.N. female staff working in the country as it continued to press for the decision to be reversed. U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated the U.N.'s insistence that all U.N. staff are needed to deliver life-saving aid to millions and stressed again that “Afghan women will not be replaced by men.” He also said the United Nations doesn’t want to get into a situation where it replaces Afghan women with international women, who are not banned from working in the country. U.S. deputy ambassador Robert Wood said the Biden administration sees the ban “basically as another effort by the Taliban to erase Afghan women and girls from society.” The United Nations on Wednesday called the ban an “unparalleled” violation of women’s rights, unlawful under international law, and unacceptable to the 193-member international organization. The Taliban decision drew condemnation from the world’s most recognized organizations and on Thursday more than a dozen U.N. experts also demanded the immediate reversal of the countrywide ban on Afghan women working with the United Nations, including the U.N. special investigator on human rights in Afghanistan. Ramiz Alakbarov, the U.N. deputy special representative and humanitarian coordinator for Afghanistan, said in a statement Thursday that Afghanistan is the world’s largest aid operation, with a record 28.3 million people in need of assistance this year including 20 million facing severe hunger and six million of them “one step away from famine.” The United Nations appealed for $4.6 billion to provide humanitarian aid for Afghanistan in 2023 but the appeal is less than 5% funded, receiving only $213 million which makes it the lowest funded U.N. aid operation globally, he said.