TEHRAN The United Nations is again pressing Afghanistan's ruling Taleban to withdraw an edict banning Afghan women from working for UN and private humanitarian organizations, a spokesman said on Thursday.
One UN mission is now in Afghanistan seeking to negotiate an end to the ban, which was issued in early July, and another was to arrive on Sunday, UN spokesman Manoel de Almeida E. Silva said.
According to a Reuter report, he said Taleban supreme leader Mullah Omar told the Taleban Council of Ministers last week that allowing women to work for humanitarian organizations "paved the way for immorality." The ruling exempts organizations in the health sector cover only Kabul, where more than 1,000 women had been working for aid agencies, which play a key relief role in the impoverished, war-torn country.
Foreign aid officials say projects in health, education and food distribution largely depend on women workers, as men are forbidden from meeting women in the 90 percent of Afghanistan under the Taleban's jurisdiction.
Taleban forces seized the capital Kabul four years ago and say they aim to end 20 years of strife by building a stable society.