Without female staff, we cannot provide aid to Afghans in need: Egeland

Following the restrictions on barring women from working at NGOs, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council says that the presence of female employees is necessary to help needy families in Afghanistan, and without them, all the activities of this council have stopped.

In a meeting with the minister of Repatriation and Refugees (MoRR) on Sunday, the head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said that without the presence of women, they cannot resume vital aid operations in Afghanistan.

According to him, in the last six months, 850,000 Afghans have been helped, and currently, 469 female employees are needed to help another 700,000 people.

“Without our female colleagues, we cannot work; we will not work,” said Egeland.

“We are not able to provide for the women of Afghanistan, but we would also not be a principled employer if we agreed to this,” he added.

“We are not giving aid to the hundreds of thousands of people we serve here in Afghanistan.”

In the meantime, Abdul Mutalib Haqqani, MoRR’s spokesman, said that efforts are underway to create a Sharia framework for women’s education and work, and humanitarian aid should not be conditional, and foreigners should not make hasty decisions about Afghanistan.

“In this case, discussions are going on and our effort is to adopt a Sharia solution to remove the ban on women’s education in universities and their work in foreign and government institutions,” he said.

At the same time, the Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan in the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has also met with Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, minister of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice for the immediate cancellation of the ban on women’s work and education.

Markus Potzel has said that the current situation is worrying for the aid organizations and that the working conditions of women in the organizations should be provided for the sake of saving the people of Afghanistan.

Previously, the head of UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) had warned that if the restrictions on women’s work in NGOs are not lifted, the institutions supported by this organization will not be able to continue humanitarian and assistance programs in Afghanistan.