UN ready for ‘heartbreaking’ decision to pull out of Afghanistan
The UN is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it cannot persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organisation, officials have said.
The warning comes after UN officials spent months negotiating with the group’s leaders in the hope of persuading them to make exceptions to a hardline edict this month barring local women from working for it, according to the head of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), Achim Steiner.
The threatened move comes as twothirds of the population, or 28 million people, are estimated to be in need of humanitarian assistance in 2023, and the US government and other G7 members have been threatening to cut aid.
The Taliban have refused to change their position, announced in December apparently on the orders of their reclusive leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada. Women make up about a third of employees of locally hired aid agency staff and are also seen as most vulnerable to any aid reductions. The edict also limited women’s access to education.
The 3,300 Afghans employed by the UN – 2,700 men and 600 women – have stayed at home since 12 April, when the Taliban said Afghan women employed by the UN could no longer report for work. But they continue to work and will be paid, the UN spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric has said. The UN’s 600-strong international staff, including 200 women, is not affected by the Taliban edict.
“It is fair to say that where we are right now is the entire United Nations system having to take a step back and re-evaluating its ability to operate there,” Steiner said. “But it’s not about negotiating fundamental principles, human rights.”
He added: “I think there is no other way of putting it than heartbreaking. I mean, if I were to imagine the UN family not being in Afghanistan today, I have before me these images of millions of young girls, young boys, fathers, mothers, who essentially will not have enough to eat.”
Despite initial promises of a more moderate rule than during their previous stint in power in the 1990s, the Taliban have imposed a harsh regime since taking over in 2021 as US and Nato forces pulled out after two decades of war. They have returned to some of their most notorious practices, including public executions and farreaching restrictions on women’s rights and education.
Steiner said this month’s further restrictions on the UN’s female employees meant “a very fundamental moment” was approaching. “Obviously our hope and expectation is that there will be some common sense prevailing,” he said.
The potential withdrawal comes amid predictions that the departure of the UN and other agencies could affect women and children most.
A report from the International Crisis Group in February said women and girls often received the smallest share of food in Afghan families and were more vulnerable to malnutrition and disease.
It also voiced concerns about the long-term impact of aid groups and others withdrawing. “If they leave, international actors may have a hard time coming back to Afghanistan in the future,” it said.
“Negotiating access to rural communities is not only a matter of getting the Taliban’s permission; in many places, NGOs have nurtured relationships with villagers for years, even decades. Rebuilding the level of trust they currently enjoy after abandoning these communities would be no small feat.”
The UN’s warning comes in the midst of a complex environment for aid agencies in Afghanistan, where some have chosen to suspend operations. The UN and other humanitarian groups have been clinging to a small number of exceptions allowing women to work in specific circumstances in health, education and nutrition as senior UN officials have tried to persuade the Taliban to reverse their December edict with little sign of success.