Afghan women working for the United Nations in Kabul have been threatened by unidentified men due to their jobs, the organization and several women said AFP Thursday.
Multiple women working for several UN agencies said AFP With anonymity condition, the men had threatened them on the street and on the phone that warn them that “they stay at home.”
The UN employee, Huda, not her real name, said that for weeks she has been bombarded with messages that abuse her “work with foreigners.”
“The messages continue to arrive and they are always harassing us … saying: ‘Don’t let me see you again, or otherwise,” said the young woman. AFP. She said her office had advised her to work from home to a new notice.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) confirmed that UN staff had been threatened.
“Several members of the United Nations National Personnel in the Afghan capital Kabul have undergone threats by unidentified people related to their work with the UN,” he said in a statement.
Taking into account the extremely serious “threats, the UN has taken” intermediate “” measures to guarantee the safety of staff members, “he added.
The Taliban government, accused by the UN of imposing a “gender apartheid” against women since he returned to power in 2021, has denied any participation.
Interior Ministry spokesman Abdul Mateen Qani said such threats were a “crime” and that the police would take measures. UNAMA said the authorities had opened an investigation.
Since he took power in 2021, the Taliban authorities have severely restricted the Afghan women of work and is the only country in the world where women are prohibited from education beyond primary school.
The Government in 2022 prohibited women from working for national and international NGOs, which extended to include UN offices in the country the following year.
Politics has some exceptions, even for women who work in medical care and education, and has not been constantly applied.
The UN has previously called politics as “deeply discriminatory.”
Selsela, about 30, said that when she returned from the office last week, she approached unknown men who told her that she should be “ashamed” and that he had to “stay at home.”
“They said: ‘We told you very well this time, but next time you will have something else that will come,” she said AFP.
“I was very scared,” he said, explaining how he struggles to work efficiently from home in a country where electricity and the Internet are not reliable.
“The situation for women is getting worse every day.”
Another woman, Rahila, said that she and two other colleagues were arrested by men while traveling home in a UN vehicle and told her not to go to the office.
“They said: ‘Don’t you know that you are not allowed?'” Rahila said, and added that he also received threatening messages from unknown numbers.
“I am very worried, I need my job and my salary,” he said.
Three quarters of the population of Afghanistan of about 45 million people fight to meet their daily needs, according to the UN, with the country facing one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
