Afghanistan | UN halts 'time critical' programmes due to Taliban's ban on female aid workers

The United Nations on Wednesday said that some "time critical" programmesin Afghanistan will have to be temporarily stopped due to the Taliban's ban on women working in NGOs. The global agency warned that many other activities are also likely to be impacted due to the ban.

Calling on the group to reverse its ban, UN aid chief Martin Griffiths, the heads of UN agencies and several aid groups in a joint statement said that women's "participation in aid programmes is not negotiable and must continue".

Watch |UNSC denounces Taliban government's restrictions on women

The statement also bears the signatures of heads of UNICEF, the World Food Programme, the World Health Organization, the UN Development Programme, and the UN high commissioners for refugees and human rights.

"Banning women from humanitarian work has immediate life-threatening consequences for all Afghans," said the statement adding that "already, some time-critical programmes have had to stop temporarily due to lack of female staff."

"We cannot ignore the operational constraints now facing us as a humanitarian community," it said.

The ban on female aid workers was announced by the Taliban-led Afghanistan administration on Saturday and it follows a ban on women attending universities. Before that girls were stopped from attending school in March.

Addressing the series of bans, the UN statement remarked "No country can afford to exclude half of its population from contributing to society."

In a separate statement, the leaders of 12 nations namely Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Britain, the United States and the EU have also urged the Taliban to reverse the ban on female aid workers and also allow women, girls to avail education.

(With inputs from agencies)

WATCH WION LIVE HERE