Despite the severe restrictions of the caretaker government against Afghan women and girls, John Egeland, the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, has announced the resumption of humanitarian activities of this council in Kandahar and a number of other areas of Afghanistan. Mr. Egeland tweeted late last night (Monday, 15th of Gemini) that all their work is done for women, men, girls and boys alike, with equal participation of male and female colleagues in humanitarian aid. He emphasized that he is very happy to resume the activities of this council. So far, the caretaker government has not reacted in this case. This is despite the fact that the Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council said about two weeks ago that the caretaker government officials in Kandahar province told him that the guidelines for women's return to work and education are almost complete. He had clarified that the current government officials have said that they are willing to look for a "temporary solution" that would allow "work by women for women" to deal with the growing humanitarian crisis in the country. It should be mentioned that nearly six months ago, the Ministry of Economy of the caretaker government issued a decree prohibiting the work of women and girls in domestic and international offices. At that time, the Ministry of Economy said that the reason for this was the non-observance of Islamic hijab by female employees. Following the issuance of this decree, many international aid organizations had announced that the ban on women's work would harm the aid process in Afghanistan and that they could not continue their work without female employees. However, a few months ago, women's work in local UN offices was banned throughout Afghanistan. These decisions were met with strong domestic and international reactions, but the acting government said that these cases are among Afghanistan's internal cases and no one has the right to interfere.
