France denounced on Monday the “obscurantism” of the Taliban after the Afghan government’s decision to ban women from working in NGOs, according to a press release from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
“This new prohibition against women (…) demonstrates, once again (…) the obscurantism of the Taliban, specified the Quai d’Orsay before adding that this implacability against them is intolerable.”
humanitarian aid in trouble
This Monday, 6 NGOs have already announced that they will suspend their activities in Afghanistan. “Women are essential in any humanitarian aid operation,” especially in Afghanistan where “only women can interact with women,” laments one of them, ActionAid.
For Catherine Colonna’s ministry, “this decision seriously hinders the delivery of humanitarian aid, to the detriment of the Afghan population, for whom many women work whose contribution is absolutely decisive.”
According to the United Nations and aid agencies, more than half of the country’s 38 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance during the harsh winter.
Returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban banned women from attending public and private universities less than a week ago, for the same reasons. They had already been barred from secondary schools.
Source: BFM TV
