BY disallowing women from working for the UN in Afghanistan, the ruling Taliban are shooting themselves in the foot. It is only the latest in a series of regressive anti-women steps the hard-line group has taken after capturing Kabul in 2021. In December, the group had disallowed Afghan women from working for local and international NGOs, and over the past few days the ban has been extended to the UN. Reacting to the ban, UN officials have threatened to scale down their operations in the impoverished country. If it were to come to this, the Afghan people would be the worst sufferers. After the ban on NGOs was initially announced, many organisations had pulled out of the country. The UN mission in Afghanistan has said it cannot abide by the fresh Taliban edict as it is “unlawful under international law”, while adding that the multilateral body was being forced to make an “appalling choice” about whether or not to continue to work in Afghanistan. A Taliban spokesman, meanwhile, has termed the UN ban an “internal issue” which should be respected by all.

For Afghanistan’s women and girls, and for that country’s hapless population in general, there are few reasons to be hopeful. The ruling hard-liners have curtailed women’s higher education and limited the number of careers women can adopt, as well as trying very hard to make women disappear from the public sphere. Yet if the UN does pull out of the country, the situation will become even more bleak, as an isolated Afghanistan faces hunger and poverty. Perhaps Muslim states — Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, the Gulf sheikhdoms — can try and talk sense into the Taliban. It must be made clear that the relentless assaults on women’s freedoms will only add to Afghanistan’s isolation. The UN, on the other hand, should reconsider pulling out of Afghanistan, as this is likely to increase the Afghan people’s miseries.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2023