KABUL: The United Nations said Thursday that it has suspended its assistance to Afghans returning from neighboring countries after the Taliban government prevented women staff members from working.
“On 9 September, in light of instructions from the de facto authorities preventing Afghan female staff from working, UNHCR was compelled to halt activities at its encashment centers across Afghanistan,” the UN’s refugee agency said.
It explained that these are places where Afghans returning from Pakistan and Iran receive money and other support.
The UN said in a separate statement that its women employees had been prevented from accessing their workplaces in several locations across the country this week.
“Security forces are visibly present at the entrances of UN premises in Kabul, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif to enforce the restriction. This is particularly concerning in view of continuing restrictions on the rights of Afghan women and girls,” the statement said.
The Taliban authorities have been back in power for four years in Afghanistan after ousting a US-backed government, and have drawn international criticism for their human rights record, particularly the treatment of women.
The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants in July for two senior Taliban leaders, accusing them of crimes against humanity over the persecution of women and girls, who are banned from most education and work.
Women and girls are also barred from parks and gyms, and from traveling without a male guardian.
The UN said it was ending its support for returnees due to operational concerns. For cultural reasons it needs female employees to interview the many women returning from neighboring countries.
The organization said it is holding discussions with the Taliban government in hopes of getting its female staff back to work.
Pakistan has hosted Afghans fleeing violence for more than four decades, from the Soviet invasion to the 2021 Taliban takeover.
However Pakistan’s government, citing an uptick in violent attacks and insurgent campaigns, launched a crackdown in 2023 to evict them, painting the population as “terrorists and criminals.”
More than 2.1 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan and Iran so far this year, according to the United Nations refugee agency.
They join earlier rounds of mass expulsions from the neighboring countries, deported or driven out by fear of arrest.
UN halts Afghan returnee aid over curbs on women staff
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UN halts Afghan returnee aid over curbs on women staff
- “UNHCR was compelled to halt activities at its encashment centers across Afghanistan,” the UN’s refugee agency said
- The UN said it was ending its support for returnees due to operational concerns
UN envoy hopeful on Cyprus, says multi-party summit premature
- Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman
- “While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning”
NICOSIA: The key UN envoy seeking to break a deadlock in Cyprus’s long-running division said she was cautiously optimistic about a breakthrough but that it would be premature to convene a multi-nation summit on the conflict.
In an interview with Cyprus’s Phileleftheros daily, envoy Maria Angela Holguin said she was hopeful after meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides and Turkish Cypriot leader Tufan Erhurman on December 11. She said their discussion, which agreed to focus also on confidence-building, was “deep, sincere and very straightforward.”
“While encouraging, the dialogue process between both leaders is at its early beginning. More will need to be done in order to strengthen the nascent momentum and establish a real climate of trust that would allow the Secretary-General to convene a 5+1 informal meeting,” said Holguin, a former Colombian foreign minister.
A 5+1 meeting would be an informal summit of the two Cypriot communities with United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and representatives of Britain, Turkiye and Greece to define how to move forward and break a seven-year stalemate in peace talks. The three NATO nations are guarantor powers of Cyprus under a treaty which granted the island independence from Britain in 1960.
A power-sharing administration of Cypriot Greeks and Turks crumbled in 1963. Turkiye invaded the north of the island in 1974 after a brief coup engineered by the military then ruling Greece. The island has been split on ethnic lines ever since.
Turkish Cypriots live in a breakaway state in the north, while Greek Cypriots in the south run an internationally recognized administration representing the whole island in the European Union.
