U.N. tells Afghan employees to stay home after Taliban bans women in workplace

April 11 (UPI) -- The United Nations told its employees in Afghanistan to stay home Tuesday after the Taliban regime ordered all women in the country to stop working for non-governmental aid organizations.

In a statement, the U.N. said it instructed staff not to report to U.N. offices in response to last week's decision by the de facto government to cut off girls and women from access to education and employment opportunities.

While the ban applies to the entire country, it strikes a devastating blow to the U.N., which employs about 4,000 people nationwide -- 3,500 of which are Afghan.

The U.N. cited the United Nations Charter in declaring the country's ban on women illegal under international law.

"U.N. work in Afghanistan is driven by the humanitarian imperative to save lives and guided by the principles of humanity, neutrality, impartiality, and independence," the statement said.

The U.N. also accused the Taliban of trying to force the organization out of Afghanistan in an effort to derail its humanitarian mission in the absence of the U.S. military, which President Joe Biden ordered withdrawn in 2021 after two decades of war.

Initial dealings with the Taliban were relatively constructive when the regime returned to power. But since then, decisions by the fundamentalist leadership have banned women from attending public universities and from working for world peacekeeping organizations like the U.N., while also limiting their access to many public spaces around the country.

Last week, U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres "strongly condemned" the ban on Afghan female colleagues and demanded the law be revoked.

"If this measure is not reversed, it will inevitably undermine our ability to deliver life-saving aid to the people who need it," Guterres said on Twitter.

The organization, which is charged with monitoring the country's deepening human rights crisis, said it planned to maintain communication with the ruling Taliban as required by the U.N. Security Council.

"United Nations engagement in Afghanistan, conducted extensively and in good faith, is anchored in the founding vision of the United Nations, that of peace, stability, and human rights for all peoples," the statement said.

Roza Otunbayeva, who serves as the U.N.'s special envoy to Afghanistan, was conducting an operational review to determine the agency's next move.

Otunbayeva will consult with U.N. staff in the country to ensure adequate operational adjustments and to develop contingency plans for other issues that might come up. The work includes assessing the scope and consequences of the ban, with the ability to pause any review activities as needed.

For now, only a limited number of U.N. employees will remain in place to perform critical tasks, while the agency did not provide a timeline for when or if full-scale operations would ever resume.

The latest ban comes five months after the regime announced a similar ban on U.N. partners working on the frontline of aid delivery in the country.