KABUL: Taliban authorities on Tuesday condemned UN accusations that they are violating the rights of women to work in Afghanistan, insisting thousands are employed in the country's public sector.
But Sharafuddin Sharaf, chief of staff at the ministry of labour and social affairs, told AFP that many women were being paid despite not attending work, as offices were not set up for proper segregation of the sexes.
"Working together in one office is not possible in our Islamic system," he said, a day after a United Nations rights expert said there had been a "staggering regression" in women's rights since the Taliban's return to power in August.
He could offer no figure on the number of women working but insisted "not a single female employee has been fired" from the civil service.
However, there have been several protests by women over losing their jobs and demanding the right to work -- some of which have been put down forcefully by the Taliban.
Sharaf said some women only went to work "once in a week to their relevant offices to sign their attendance, and their salaries are paid at their homes".
This takes place in offices where "gender-based segregation is yet to be done," he said, adding that women were at work in the health, education and interior ministries where they are needed.
Sharaf said it was up to the all-male leadership of the Taliban to decide when women "can come to the rest of the offices where they are not coming currently".
His comments come after a UN rights expert said women's freedoms had significantly deteriorated since the Taliban returned.
"There's no country in the world where women and girls have so rapidly been deprived of their fundamental human rights purely because of gender," Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the rights situation in Afghanistan said in Geneva.
Government spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Bennett's report was biased.
"There is no threat to the lives of women in Afghanistan now, or nobody dishonours Afghan women," he said in a statement late on Monday, adding that they are still being enrolled in public and private universities.
Still, most secondary schools for girls have been ordered to shut across the country, meaning this generation of women university students could be the last.
Several Taliban officials say the ban is only temporary, but they have also wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure -- from a lack of funds to time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.
On Monday, the education minister was quoted by local media as saying it was a cultural issue, as many rural people did not want their daughters to attend school.
Since the Taliban seized power, they have imposed harsh restrictions on girls and women to comply with their austere vision of Islam -- effectively squeezing them out of public life.
They swiftly shut down the ministry of women's affairs and replaced it with the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.
The hardline Islamists have also ordered women to cover up in public, preferably with an all-encompassing burqa.
Taliban reject UN report, say no women fired from government jobs
https://arab.news/rvd47
Taliban reject UN report, say no women fired from government jobs
- Still, most secondary schools for girls have been ordered to shut across the country
Moscow made an offer to France regarding a French citizen imprisoned in Russia, says Kremlin
- Laurent Vinatier, an adviser for Swiss-based adviser Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024
- He is accused of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities”
The Kremlin on Thursday said it was in contact with the French authorities over the fate of a French political scholar serving a three-year sentence in Russia and reportedly facing new charges of espionage.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia has made “an offer to the French” regarding Laurent Vinatier, arrested in Moscow last year and convicted of collecting military information, and that “the ball is now in France’s court.” He refused to provide details, citing the sensitivity of the matter.
French President Emmanuel Macron is following Vinatier’s situation closely, his office said in a statement. French Foreign Ministry spokesperson Pascal Confavreux said Thursday that all government services are fully mobilized to pay provide consular support to Vinatier and push for his liberation as soon as possible.
Peskov’s remarks come after journalist Jérôme Garro of the French TF1 TV channel asked President Vladimir Putin during his annual news conference on Dec. 19 whether Vinatier’s family could hope for a presidential pardon or his release in a prisoner exchange. Putin said he knew “nothing” about the case, but promised to look into it.
Vinatier was arrested in Moscow in June 2024. Russian authorities accused him of failing to register as a “foreign agent” while collecting information about Russia’s “military and military-technical activities” that could be used to the detriment of national security. The charges carry a maximum penalty of five years in prison.
The arrest came as tensions flared between Moscow and Paris following French President Emmanuel Macron’s comments about the possibility of deploying French troops in Ukraine.
Vinatier’s lawyers asked the court to sentence him to a fine, but the judge in October 2024 handed him a three-year prison term — a sentence described as “extremely severe” by France’s Foreign Ministry, which called for the scholar’s immediate release.
Detentions on charges of spying and collecting sensitive data have become increasingly frequent in Russia and its heavily politicized legal system since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
In addition to criticizing his sentence, the French Foreign Ministry urged the abolition of Russia’s laws on foreign agents, which subject those carrying the label to additional government scrutiny and numerous restrictions. Violations can result in criminal prosecution. The ministry said the legislation “contributes to a systematic violation of fundamental freedoms in Russia, like the freedom of association, the freedom of opinion and the freedom of expression.”
Vinatier is an adviser for the Center for Humanitarian Dialogue, a Switzerland-based nongovernmental organization, which said in June 2024 that it was doing “everything possible to assist” him.
While asking the judge for clemency ahead of the verdict, Vinatier pointed to his two children and his elderly parents he has to take care of.
The charges against Vinatier relate to a law that requires anyone collecting information on military issues to register with authorities as a foreign agent.
Human rights activists have criticized the law and other recent legislation as part of a Kremlin crackdown on independent media and political activists intended to stifle criticism of the war in Ukraine.
In August 2025, Russian state news agency Tass reported that Vinatier was also charged with espionage, citing court records but giving no details. Those convicted of espionage in Russia face between 10 and 20 years in prison.
Russia in recent years has arrested a number of foreigners — mainly US citizens — on various criminal charges and then released them in prisoner swaps with the United States and other Western nations. The largest exchange since the Cold War took place in August 2024, when Moscow freed journalists Evan Gershkovich and Alsu Kurmasheva, fellow American Paul Whelan, and Russian dissidents in a multinational deal that set two dozen people free.
