Taliban Ban Women From Working In National, Foreign NGOs

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered all national and international NGOs to stop their women employees from working after “serious complaints” about their dress code, the Ministry of Economy said on Saturday.

The order threatened to suspend the operating licenses of NGOs that failed to implement the order.

This restriction comes barely a week after the Taliban authorities banned women from attending universities, prompting global outrage and protests in some Afghan cities.

“There have been serious complaints regarding the non-observance of the Islamic hijab and other rules and regulations pertaining to the work of females in national and international organisations,” a notification sent to all NGOs read.

“The ministry of economy… instructs all organisations to stop females working until further notice.

“In case of negligence of the above directive, the license of the organisation which has been issued by this ministry will be cancelled.”

Two international NGOs confirmed that they had gotten the notification.

“We are suspending all our activities from Sunday,” a top official at an international NGO involved in humanitarian work said.

“We will soon have a meeting of top officials of all NGOs to decide how to handle this issue.”