Speaking to the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, in Kabul, the Taliban’s minister for disaster management, Mullah Mohammad Abbas Akhund, has said that the group will not lift restrictions on women working for international aid agencies. The Taliban minister said that the “edict cannot be lifted – the international community, he insisted, must accept Afghanistan’s Islamic culture.”
The Taliban has been widely condemned for its oppressive decrees banning women from working as aid workers as well as banning girls from secondary and higher education.
But the group has resisted calls to reverse course. Last week, a delegation of senior UN officials led by its Deputy Secretary- General, Amina Mohammed, and the Executive Director of UN Women, Sima Bahous, left Kabul without gaining any concessions from the Taliban leaders.
