On the second day of his visit to Afghanistan, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) highlighted the consequences of the Taliban ban on female NGO staff in Afghanistan.
In a thread on Twitter on Monday, January 9, the NRC Secretary General, Jan Egeland, pointed to the devastating consequences of the ban on women’s work.
Mr. Egeland said the devastating consequences of a continued Taliban ban on female NGO staff in Afghanistan would make 6 million people vulnerable to famine, adding that 600,000 children will be deprived of access to education.
The NRC Secretary General also said that 13.5 million people will be cut off from access to clean water and 14.1 million people will be deprived of protective services if women continue to be deprived of working for NGOs.
“I tell the responsible ministers in Afghanistan that NRC is ready to restart our aid operations tomorrow. But we can only do so when we gain unimpeded access for both our female and male staff members to reach all the affected population in need,” Jan Egeland tweeted.
Yesterday, this Norwegian official warned of the paralysis of relief agencies funded by the Norwegian government following the ban on female NGO employees in Afghanistan.