The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has recently said that its financial support helps thousands of women employees in healthcare despite the Taliban’s ban on women’s employment in Afghanistan, including working for UN agencies.
UNICEF’s Health Lead in Afghanistan, Fouzia Shafique, stated in a tweet on Sunday that the agency is currently providing financial assistance to nearly 10,000 female workers to continue working in the healthcare facilities and communities across the country, thanks to generous funds from the Asian Development Bank and World Bank.
In a separate interview earlier on Wednesday, Shafique indicated that UNICEF is providing basic and secondary healthcare services across the country through approximately 2,400 health facilities, providing life-saving services to nearly 20 million children and their parents.
The Taliban banned women from working for national and international NGOs in December 2022, prompting widespread condemnations and outcry.
Apart from banning women’s employment, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan has documented over 50 edicts by the Taliban against women and girls between September 2021 and May 2023 that have severely restricted women’s and girls’ basic rights, mobility, social life, and other freedoms.
