From the BBC:
“Afghanistan: Stay home,
female Kabul government workers told”
The new Taliban mayor of
Afghanistan's capital Kabul has told female municipal employees to stay home
unless their jobs cannot be filled by a man. Hamdullah Nomany said the Taliban
"found it necessary to stop women from working for a while". It is
the latest restriction imposed on Afghanistan's women by the country's
hard-line new Islamist government. During their previous rule in the 1990s
women were barred from education and the workplace. After seizing the country
last month following the withdrawal of US forces, the Taliban said women's
rights would be respected "within the framework of Islamic law". But
the Taliban favour a strict interpretation of Islam's legal system, Sharia law.
Since taking power working women have been told to stay at home until the
security situation improves, and Taliban fighters have beaten women protesting
against the all-male interim government. The Islamist group appears to have
shut down the women's affairs ministry and replaced it with a department that
once enforced strict religious doctrines. And this weekend secondary schools
reopened, but with only boys and male teachers allowed back into classrooms.
The Taliban said it was working on reopening schools for girls.
According to the Kabul mayor
about a third of the municipality's 3,000 employees are women. He said some
would carry on working. "For example, women work in the women's toilets in
the city where men cannot go," he said. "But for the positions that
others [men] can fill, we have told them [women] to stay at home until the
situation is normalised. Their salaries will be paid," he added. On
Sunday, there were small protests outside the women's affairs ministry while
another group of women held a press conference to demand their rights. One of
those protesting at the ministry said "we do not want this ministry to be
removed. The removal of women [means] the removal of human beings." In a
separate development, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission said
it had been unable to fulfil its duties since the Taliban's takeover. The
organisation said in a statement that its buildings, vehicles and computers had
all been taken over by the Taliban.
^ The Taliban continue their
official attacks against Afghan Women while the world does nothing. ^
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