The Taliban govt on Saturday ordered all international and home non-governmental teams in Afghanistan to droop using ladies, allegedly as a result of some feminine staff did not put on the Islamic scarf as it should be. The ban was once the most recent restrictive transfer via Afghanistan’s new rulers in opposition to ladies’s rights and freedoms.
The building comes simply days after the Taliban banned feminine scholars from attending universities around the nation. Afghan ladies have since demonstrated in primary towns in opposition to the ban, an extraordinary signal of home protest for the reason that Taliban seized energy final 12 months. The resolution has additionally led to outrage and opposition in Afghanistan and past.
The order got here in a letter from Economy Minister Qari Din Mohammed Hanif, which stated that any NGO discovered now not complying with the order could have their working license revoked in Afghanistan. The ministry’s spokesman, Abdul Rahman Habib, showed the letter’s content material to The Associated Press.
The ministry stated it had won “serious complaints” about feminine personnel running for NGOs now not dressed in the “correct” headscarf, or hijab. It was not immediately clear if the order applies to all women or only Afghan women working at the NGOs.
More details were not immediately available amid concerns the latest Taliban ban could be a stepping-stone to a blanket ban on Afghan women leaving the home.
“It’s a heartbreaking announcement,” said Maliha Niazai, a master trainer at an NGO teaching young people about issues such as gender-based violence. “Are we not human beings? Why are they treating us with this cruelty?”
The 25-year-old, who works at Y-Peer Afghanistan and lives in Kabul, stated her activity was once necessary as a result of she was once serving her nation and is the one individual supporting her circle of relatives. “Will the officials support us after this announcement? If not, then why are they snatching meals from our mouths?” she requested.
Another NGO employee, a 24-year-old from Jalalabad running the Norwegian Refugee Council, stated it was once “the worst moment of my life.”
“The job gives me more than a … living, it is a representation of all the efforts I’ve made,” she said, declining to give her name fearing for her own safety.
Also Saturday, Taliban security forces used a water cannon to disperse women protesting the ban on university education for women in the western city of Herat, eyewitnesses said.
According to the witnesses, about two dozen women were heading to the Herat provincial governor’s house on Saturday to protest the ban — many chanting: “Education is our right” — after they had been driven again via safety forces firing the water cannon.
Video shared with media retailers confirmed the ladies screaming and hiding in an aspect boulevard to flee the water cannon. They then resume their protest, with chants of “Disgraceful!”
One of the protest organizers, Maryam, stated between 100 and 150 ladies took phase within the protest, shifting in small teams from other portions of town towards a central assembly level. She didn’t give her final title for concern of reprisals.