The United States Special Envoy for Afghanistan Thomas West has started a week-long trip to the Middle East nations of Qatar, United Arab Emirate, and Türkiye for holding talks with the officials of some host countries and Afghan activists and leaders.
He began his trip on April 11 and is set to conclude it on April 18, according to a media note issued by the US Department of State on Tuesday.
In Qatar and UAE, as per the media note, he will meet with officials of the two nations, partner missions, Afghan civil society activists, business and thought leaders. “In Istanbul, he will hold consultations with Afghan political leaders, journalists, humanitarian professionals and human rights activists,” the State Department added.
“SRA West is conducting outreach in the region to secure input as the international community seeks solutions to Afghanistan’s compounding challenges, made worse by the Taliban’s recent decisions to limit women’s participation in humanitarian operations and ban them from their vital work for the UN,” part of the media note reads.
The Taliban recaptured Afghanistan in August 2021. It has continued to impose restrictions on women’s right to education, work, and freedom of movement over the past 20 months.
Under the group’s rule, women and girls are now effectively confined to home space as they are banned from school, universities, work for NGOs, and traveling alone.
Though these restrictions have ignited strong reactions and repeated calls from the international community, particularly the United Nations and Islamic world, for their reversals, the Taliban leadership has only continued to impose more bans on women and girls.
Reacting to the Taliban’s ban on UN female workers, the United Nations has asked all its male and female staff to not come to work until further notice.
The bans, particularly on UN female staff, have largely impacted the humanitarian aid delivery services in the country as more than 28 million of its estimated 41 million population, according to the UN, need humanitarian aid for survival.
