Aid for Afghanistan: How aid organizations circumvent the ban on women working

As is so often the case, Afghan reality is more complex than first impressions suggest.

At the end of December, the Taliban government decreed that non-governmental organizations could no longer employ women.

The report was the high point of the policy with which the Islamists are increasingly pushing women out of public life in Afghanistan.

Just a few days earlier, they had announced that the universities would be closed to female students and professors.

Alexander Haneke

Editor in Politics.

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A month later, however, it turns out that the ban is not as categorical in practice as the top Taliban leadership in Kandahar would like it to be.

The aid organizations CARE, International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Save the Children were the first to announce last week that they were resuming individual projects in the areas of health, nutrition and education - including female colleagues.

All aid organizations agree that without women they cannot and do not want to do their work in Afghanistan.

Those involved on the ground are very careful about discussing the details, which is why they don't want to be quoted.

However, a picture emerges from various conversations with NGO employees in Kabul.

At the center of this are once again the pragmatists in the ranks of the Taliban.

Even during the dispute over girls' education, there were numerous indications that many in the cabinet did not support the radical idea of ​​the top leadership in Kandahar to completely oust women from the public eye and thus further isolate themselves internationally.

The NGOs argue with cultural reality

In the case of the ban on women working, it was apparently the Taliban's Ministry of Health that dared to take the first step.

There are many pragmatists who have to find solutions to the country's immense human problems and have little time for fundamental ideological questions.

The helpers were able to derive the decisive argument against the ban on women working from the cultural reality of Afghanistan: women should not come into contact with strange men.

The medical sector is therefore absolutely dependent on female employees.

Since the Afghan health system is largely supported by international funds, the ministry was able to justify an exemption for the NGOs involved.

But they didn't want to be fobbed off with the fact that the staff in the first row, i.e. doctors and nurses, were allowed to work again.

The organizations also demanded guarantees for the back office and again argued in Afghan terms: Doctors and nurses should not be forced to turn to male colleagues in administration.

In Afghan practice, this is indeed important.

Because many women would hardly confide in a strange man if there were problems.

For the aid organizations, this is not only important to defend their own principles that they don't want to work without their colleagues.

For many employees, the job is an existential question.

Since the country's economy collapsed, large families are often dependent on one person's income.

In many areas, however, it is not enough just to have the ministry in Kabul issue a special permit.

The Taliban are not a strictly managed cadre organization.

While all bow to the orders of their supreme leader, the Emir Haibatullah Achundsada, in practice there are many centers of power at the local level.

Former commanders who are still powerful sit there in the decision-making posts and often act very freely.

Complicated networks of loyalties and responsibilities

For the aid organizations this means that they can achieve a lot in some provinces with the right contacts.

Even at the girls' schools, local leaders turned a blind eye.

In practice, however, NGOs have to navigate these complicated networks of loyalties and responsibilities and involve all relevant actors in order not to place their employees in dangerous gray areas.

In any case, the exceptions achieved are only "a drop in the ocean", as one of the participants says.

The icy winter holds the country under its spell.

Around three-quarters of Afghans depend on international aid, and most projects remain idle while women are banned from working.

Although UN organizations are exempt from the Taliban decree, their projects mostly run in cooperation with local NGOs.

And most organizations are making it clear that they will not move forward until the work ban is lifted.

It is not only in the health sector that you cannot reach women with an all-male workforce due to cultural barriers.

Most donors also require a precise impact analysis of the funds used.

This is only possible if the NGO staff can talk to those who end up using the aid and can say what is really needed.

When it comes to supporting families or children in need, it is mainly women.

UN Emergency Relief Coordinator Martin Griffith is on the road in the country these days.

But the biggest challenge for the mediators is to gain access to the actual center of power around the Emir in Kandahar.

There are hardly any comments on the progress of the efforts, but behind closed doors the UN says that some things are in flux.