MSF condemns the ban on women working for NGOs and their erasure from public life in Afghanistan
This decision came four days after the Taliban government had suspended university education for all women in Afghanistan, another step in the IEA’s brutal clampdown on the rights and freedoms of Afghan women.
Soon after the latest declaration, the Minister of Public Health informed health actors, but not formalised it officially, that the directive doesn’t apply to NGOs that deliver medical care.
In addition, MSF is not registered in the country as an NGO, but as an international organization. We are therefore not directly affected by this directive as we depend mainly on the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nevertheless, this administrative status negotiated with the previous administration does not guarantee us any long-term immunity.
That is why we want to proactively communicate our frustration with these successive hardening policies towards women.