Taliban probes death threats against UN female staff
According to a report, the Taliban is investigating open death threats against dozens of Afghan women working for the United Nations.
In his latest update on the human rights status in Afghanistan, dozens of women’s national personnel, whose mission to the UN country were subjected to open death threats in May.
The threats have been on the basis of serious restrictions on women since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021.
The UN report, published on Sunday, said that threats come from unidentified individuals about the UN aid mission or unama, funds and programs in Afghanistan, and “required intermediate measures to protect the UN safety”.
Taliban’s UN mission said that his staff were not responsible for threats. In the report, an internal ministry investigation continues.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani, such a threat was not made, he said.
“This is completely wrong,” Qani said.
“The ministry has an independent department for this and we have a strategic plan for protection and security, so there is no threat to them in any field, nor can it threaten them, or no threat to them.”
Qani did not answer questions about an investigation.
The Taliban prevented Afghan women from working in domestic and foreign non -governmental organizations in December 2022, extending this ban to the UN six months later, and then threatened to close the agencies and groups that still employ women. Nevertheless, some women have remained in key sectors such as health services and emergency humanitarian aid, which help agencies say are great.
Humanitarian aid agencies, Taliban’s allegations rejected by the authorities, said that or intervening.
The UN report is the first official confirmation of death threats against Afghan women working in the sector. The report also emphasized other areas that affect women’s personal freedom and security.
In Herat, the inspectors from the Ministry of Auxiliary and Virtue began to require women to wear a cape with full body cape covering their heads. Dozens of women, who are considered to be “not incompatible”, have been banned from entering markets or use of public transport. In the report, several women were detained until their relatives brought them a child.
In Uruzgan, women were arrested for wearing a headscarf – a headscarf – instead of a burka covering the whole body and face.
Women have also rejected access to public spaces in line with the laws that prohibit them from these fields. In the state of Ghor, the police forced several families to leave the entertainment. He warned their families against visiting open -air picnic sites with women.
In Herat, his assistant and virtue inspectors stopped accessing family groups with women and girls from accessing an open entertainment zone and allowed only all male groups.
Nobody from the Vice President and the Ministry of Virtue was not ready to comment on the events of Ghor, Herat and Uruzgan, which the UN said in May.
The Public Health Department in Kandahar told female health workers to accompany them to work by male parents with a identity card that proves that they are associated with blood or marriage.
It was not immediately clear whether the card was unique to Kandahar or to be presented to Afghanistan.
The UN report, “a Mahram (Male Guardian) ID card is reported to be cumbersome, and the spread of the virtue and to confirm the relationship to the local community (eg Malik, Imam or Village Elder) can take a few weeks to prevent a de facto department for the prevention of a member.”
