Spokesperson says the UN should respect all, not take stance equal to \u2018certain countries\u2019
\nKABUL
\nTaliban authorities on Tuesday condemned UN accusations that they are violating the rights of women to work in Afghanistan, insisting thousands are employed in the country\u2019s public sector.
\nBut Sharafuddin Sharaf, chief of staff at the ministry of labour and social affairs, told AFP that many women were being paid despite not attending work, as offices were not set up for proper segregation of the sexes.
\n\u201cWorking together in one office is not possible in our Islamic system,\u201d he said, a day after a United Nations rights expert said there had been a \u201cstaggering regression\u201d in women\u2019s rights since the Taliban\u2019s return to power in August.
\nHe could offer no figure on the number of women working but insisted \u201cnot a single female employee has been fired\u201d from the civil service.
\nHowever, there have been several protests by women over losing their jobs and demanding the right to work \u2014 some of which have been put down forcefully by the Taliban.
\nSharaf said some women only went to work \u201conce in a week to their relevant offices to sign their attendance, and their salaries are paid at their homes\u201d. This takes place in offices where \u201cgender-based segregation is yet to be done,\u201d he said, adding that women were at work in the health, education and interior ministries where they are needed.
\nSharaf said it was up to the all-male leadership of the Taliban to decide when women \u201ccan come to the rest of the offices where they are not coming currently\u201d.
\nHis comments come after a UN rights expert said women\u2019s freedoms had significantly deteriorated since the Taliban returned.
\n\u201cThere\u2019s no country in the world where women and girls have so rapidly been deprived of their fundamental human rights purely because of gender,\u201d Richard Bennett, the special rapporteur on the rights situation in Afghanistan said in Geneva.
\nGovernment spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said Bennett\u2019s report was biased.
\n\u201cThere is no threat to the lives of women in Afghanistan now, or nobody dishonours Afghan women,\u201d he said in a statement late on Monday, adding that they are still being enrolled in public and private universities.
\nStill, most secondary schools for girls have been ordered to shut across the country, meaning this generation of women university students could be the last.
\nSeveral Taliban officials say the ban is only temporary, but they have also wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure \u2014 from a lack of funds to time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.
\nOn Monday, the education minister was quoted by local media as saying it was a cultural issue, as many rural people did not want their daughters to attend school.
\nSince the Taliban seized power, , they have imposed harsh restrictions on girls and women to comply with their austere vision of Islam \u2014 effectively squeezing them out of public life.
\nThey swiftly shut down the ministry of women\u2019s affairs and replaced it with the ministry for the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice.
\nThe hardliners have also ordered women to cover up in public, preferably with an all-encompassing burqa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Spokesperson says the UN should respect all, not take stance equal to \u2018certain countries\u2019 KABUL Taliban authorities on Tuesday condemned UN accusations that they are violating the rights of women to work in Afghanistan, insisting thousands are employed in the country\u2019s public sector. But Sharafuddin Sharaf, chief of staff at the ministry of labour and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":283324,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-283311","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n