UN Says Ready for ‘Heartbreaking’ Decision to Pull Out of Afghanistan

Date: 19 April 2023 - 21:55

News ID: ۱۱۴۱۵۱

UNITED NATIONS (AP) – The United Nations is ready to take the “heartbreaking” decision to pull out of Afghanistan in May if it can’t persuade the Taliban to let local women work for the organization, the head of the UN Development Program said.
UN officials are negotiating with the Afghan government in the hope that it will make exceptions to an edict this month barring local women from UN work, UNDP Administrator Achim Steiner told The Associated Press.
“It is fair to say that where we are right now is the entire United Nations system having to take a step back and reevaluating its ability to operate there,” Steiner said. “But it’s not about negotiating fundamental principles, human rights.”
The UNDP said Tuesday that it “reaffirms its long-standing commitment to stay and deliver for the people of Afghanistan.” Secretary-General António Guterres’ spokesman, Stéphane Dujarric, said that the United Nations continues “to push back on this counterproductive, to say the least, edict by the authorities.”
The Taliban have allowed Afghan women to engage in some work, Steiner said, and a UN report released Tuesday shows that the country desperately needs more women working, with its economy flailing.
The Taliban takeover has been accompanied by some very modest signs of economic recovery. There has been some increase in exports, some exchange rate stabilization and less inflation. But gross domestic product, the sum of all goods and services produced within Afghanistan’s borders, is expected to be outstripped by population growth, meaning that per capita income will decline from $359 in 2022 to $345 in 2024, the report says.
Some of those economic problems are due to Taliban policies keeping most women out of the workplace, Steiner said. Those economic problems mean more need in the country, but the UN has decided that human rights are non-negotiable and it will reduce its presence in May if the Taliban do not relent.
“I think there is no other way of putting it than heartbreaking,” Steiner said in Monday’s interview. “I mean, if I were to imagine the UN family not being in Afghanistan today, I have before me these images of millions of young girls, young boys, fathers, mothers, who essentially will not have enough to eat.”
A source of faint optimism is the Taliban’s allowing women to work in specific circumstances in health, education and some small businesses.
“In one sense, the de facto authorities have enabled the UN to roll out a significant humanitarian and also emergency development assistance set of activities,” Steiner said. “But they also continuously are shifting the goalposts, issuing new edicts.”