Send a man to do your job, Taliban instructs female employees
A year after female public-sector workers were barred from government work and told to stay at home, the Taliban has asked women working in Afghanistan’s finance ministry to send a male relative to do their job.
The Taliban regime’s return to power in Afghanistan was never good news for the country’s women. The Taliban were notorious for their oppressive rules against women over the years, and the new regime is attempting to impose similar restrictions once more. The country’s finance ministry has asked female employees to nominate a male relative to work in their place. Women were previously barred from working in the public sector, and this announcement reaffirmed the government’s stance.
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According to a report in The Guardian, the Taliban has asked women employees in Afghanistan to send a male relative to do their job. One of the employees interviewed by the outlet said she received calls from Taliban officials requesting a male employee in her place. She was quoted as saying that Taliban officials told her that “workload in the office has increased and they need to hire a man instead of us.” Since taking control of Afghanistan in August of last year, the Taliban has issued several decrees restricting women’s rights.
“Since they came [to power], the Taliban have demoted me, and reduced my salary from 60,000 Afghanis [575 pounds] to AFN12,000. I cannot even afford my son’s school fees. When I questioned this, an official rudely told me to get out of his office and said that my demotion was not negotiable,” one of the employees of the Finance Department told the outlet.
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The woman stated that she was contacted by the ministry’s human resources department and asked to recommend a replacement for a position she had held for 15 years.
She has a master’s degree in business administration and is the head of a ministry department.
This is the Taliban regime’s most recent decision, and it serves as a painful reminder of how things were in Afghanistan in the early 2000s. In May, the government issued another decree concerning women’s clothing, making male “guardians” required to accompany women in public.
