KABUL: The Taliban government said on Wednesday that forbidding Afghan women from working for the UN is an “internal issue” and will not create obstacles to the global organization’s operations in Afghanistan.
The statement comes a day after the UN launched a review of its work in the country and told about 3,000 of its Afghan staff, both men and women, to stay at home.
According to the UN, the Taliban ban is forcing it to make an “appalling choice” about whether it can continue its mission in Afghanistan.
In the Taliban’s first full statement since the UN acknowledged receiving the order last week, chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said on Wednesday that the government is “committed to all the rights of our people.”
“The Islamic Emirate does not want to create obstacles for the United Nations; rather, it wants to make it clear that this is an internal issue of Afghanistan, which does not create problem for anyone and should be respected by all sides,” Mujahid said.
“This decision does not mean that there is discrimination, or creates obstacles to the functions of the United Nations.”
Mujahid said the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is the result of sanctions and pressure from the international community, including travel bans, restrictions on its banking sector and the freezing of Afghan central bank assets.
The ban on Afghan women working for the UN was the latest in a series of curbs imposed on women since the Taliban took over the country in 2021.
The ruling administration has banned education for girls and women beyond the sixth grade, while women are also barred from working, studying, or traveling without a male companion. In December, the Taliban also placed a ban on most female NGO workers.
The UN has said it cannot accept the decision, calling it unlawful and an unparalleled violation of women’s rights.
Both Afghan women and men are essential to all aspects of UN work in Afghanistan, including delivery of life-saving aid to millions of people, the global body said.
“People have lost their hope in Afghanistan,” Farimah Nikkhwa, an Afghan women’s rights activist, told Arab News.
The situation is “really worrying,” she said, adding that those protesting or raising awareness in the country have either been arrested or tortured.
Nikkhwa said she is concerned that human rights organizations and the UN are not taking enough action against the Taliban.
“The Taliban are hard-liners and I hope their rule is not sustained in Afghanistan. Women in Afghanistan do not even have the most basic rights; the situation is really frustrating and unbearable.”
However, Arzo Joya, a former NGO worker, said she is still holding on to hope despite everything that has happened in her country.
“I hope the Taliban revise such decision and give permission to women to work and resume education, as well to see a developed and advanced Afghanistan in the future,” she said.
Taliban say ban on women staff is no obstacle to UN work in Afghanistan
https://arab.news/2bx4h
Taliban say ban on women staff is no obstacle to UN work in Afghanistan
- Decision ‘should be respected by all sides,’ Taliban govt says
- UN calls Taliban order an unparalleled violation of women’s rights
Single ‘digital nation-state’ is not a far-fetched notion, Melania Trump tells UN Security Council
- US first lady argues that AI and global connectivity could reshape education, help reduce conflict and empower children worldwide
- Societies rooted in knowledge foster innovation, tolerance and moral reasoning, while those shaped by ignorance risk disorder and conflict, she says
NEW YORK CITY: The idea of a single digital nation-state is “not so far-fetched,” US First Lady Melania Trump told the UN Security Council on Monday.
She argued that artificial intelligence and global connectivity could reshape education, help reduce conflict and empower children worldwide.
The US holds the rotating presidency of the council for March, and as she presided over its first meeting of the month Trump said technology was erasing borders and creating what she described as a shared intellectual future.
“Perhaps this idea isn’t so far-fetched,” she said, pointing to the rise of digital currencies, blockchain-based payment systems, and AI-driven databases she argued were already transforming media and financial markets.
Trump thanked the US’s fellow council members — the UK, France, Russia, China, Greece, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Denmark, Panama, Liberia, Somalia, Colombia, Pakistan, Bahrain and Latvia — for their role in efforts to maintain international security.
The responsibility for preventing conflict “must be applied evenly and should never be carried out lightly,” she said. Her remarks focused in particular on the role of education as the foundation of peace and stability.
“A nation that makes learning sacred protects its books, its language, its science and its mathematics. It protects its future,” Trump said, arguing that societies rooted in knowledge foster innovation, tolerance and moral reasoning, while those shaped by ignorance risk disorder and conflict.
Education is widely recognized as a fundamental human right, she added, yet many children and young adults around the world remain barred from the chance to attend high school or university. The losses arising from this squandered potential, from potential medical breakthroughs to possible advances in food security and technology, are borne not only by the individual countries involved but by humanity as a whole, she said.
Trump called for the expansion of global access to technology to help bridge the digital divide, noting that about 6 billion people, 70 percent of the world’s population, now use mobile devices and the internet.
“If our nations band together, we can close the technological divide,” she said, describing a world in which a farmer on a remote Greek island, a student in Somalia and a resident of New York City can all tap into centuries of accumulated human knowledge.
AI was democratizing access to information once confined to university libraries, she added, and redefining participation in the global “economy of ideas.”
She continued: “Conflict arises from ignorance. Knowledge creates understanding, replacing fear with peace and unity.”
Trump called on council members to safeguard learning and promote access to higher education, urging them to “build a future generation of leaders who embrace peace through education.”
She added: “The path to peace depends on us taking responsibility to empower our children through education and technology.”
