Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told a news conference on Tuesday that women should not go to work for their own safety. will be more tolerant.
The directive came on the same day the World Bank halted funding to Afghanistan, citing concerns about women’s safety, and calls for a “transparent and speedy investigation” into reports of human rights abuses since the Taliban’s takeover by the United Nations. did. Within a few hours of leaving.
Mujahid said the stay-at-home guidance would be temporary, and would allow the group to find ways to ensure that women “are not treated in a degrading manner” or “God forbid, get hurt.” He acknowledged that the measure was necessary because Taliban soldiers “keep changing and are not trained.”
“We are happy to enter their buildings, but we want to ensure that they do not face any concerns,” he said. So, we have asked them to take time off from work till the situation normalises and the procedures related to women are put in place, then they can return to their jobs after the announcement.”
When the terrorist group last came to power between 1996 and 2001, the extremist group banned women from the workplace, barred them from leaving their homes and forced them to cover their entire bodies.
The group has insisted that its new-age charge would be more liberal, but Taliban leaders have refused to guarantee that women’s rights will not be taken back and many have already faced violence.
The World Bank announced on Tuesday it was halting financial aid to Afghanistan amid concerns about the fate of women under the Taliban regime, in another blow to an economy that relies heavily on foreign aid.
“We are deeply concerned about the situation in Afghanistan and its impact on the country’s development prospects, especially for women,” World Bank spokeswoman Marcela Sanchez-Bender said in a statement to CNN.
The United Nations, after an emergency meeting of its Human Rights Council on Tuesday, called for a “transparent and speedy investigation” of human rights abuses “by all sides of the conflict” amid growing concern from the international community.
But the agency was criticized for parsing its language by several non-profit organizations after Pakistan initially adopted the proposed resolution.
Human Rights Watch’s Geneva director John Fischer said in a statement that the UN “failed to fulfill its responsibility to create a strong human rights watchdog body and protect the Afghan people.” He said the proposal is “a slap in the face to Afghan human rights defenders and women’s rights activists who watch with horror as the rule of law is crumbling around them.”
According to a White House official, about 19,000 people were evacuated from Afghanistan on Tuesday, including 11,200 on US military flights and 7,800 on coalition flights.
This is slightly less than the previous day, when the US reported that 21,000 people had been evacuated from Kabul airport via 37 US military flights, as well as 8,900 people on 57 coalition flights.
A frantic western evacuation operation at Kabul’s airport has provided the only unconscious opportunity for many Afghans to flee the country in recent days, and since the militants seized power, crowds have grown outside the facility.
But US President Joe Biden reiterated that he aims to stick with his August 31 deadline to withdraw troops from Afghanistan – unless the Taliban disrupt ongoing evacuation operations or access to the airport. Top US allies have already called for expansion to evacuate more people.
CNN’s Nick Patton Walsh, Sarah Dean, Sheena McKenzie, Jeremy Diamond and Matt Egan contributed reporting.
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