How do humanitarian NGOs deal with the Taliban ban on female workers?
Interested in learning more about this session? Read the summarizing report here.
On 24 December, the Taliban’s Ministry of Economy announced a ban on female NGO workers in Afghanistan. This has huge implications for female colleagues in Afghanistan, the people they help and the NGOs they work for. Moreover, it is another violation of women’s rights and human rights by the Taliban. The impact of this decision is enormous as the country is going through an economic crisis, winter is in its grip and more than two-thirds of the population needs humanitarian assistance.
Can aid agencies only continue to work when they can have their all-gender staff as they need? Or should humanitarian NGOs stay to see what aid they still can deliver, even under inhuman conditions?
- What are appropriate humanitarian politics in the face of the restrictions on women working for aid agencies?
- What is the way forward in dealing with the government? What relations or negotiation can be established and what does that mean for resuming more structural aid relations?
- Nasr Muflahi, Country Director of Intersos Afghanistan. Over the last 20 years, he worked in challenging humanitarian contexts such as Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen.
- Norah Niland, Co-Founder of United Against Inhumanity (UAI) and chair of UAI’s internal task team on Afghanistan.
- Leande Grezel, Deputy Head of Mission with Premiere Urgence.
Organised by prof. Thea Hilhorst (ISS), moderated by ass. prof. Rodrigo Mena (ISS) and Peter Heintze (KUNO)
This webinar is a hybrid session: a humanitarianism course at ISS (with around 25 international students), and also a public event co-organized by KUNO (participants can pose question via the chat).
