G7 calls on Taliban to urgently reverse ban on women from NGOs; 'reckless and dangerous'

G7 foreign ministers on Thursday demanded that the Islamist fundamentalist regime of the Taliban "urgently reverses" the ban imposed on women of Afghanistan employed with Non-Governmental Organizations [NGOs]. In the latest assault on women's freedom and rights, Afghanistan’s Taliban ordered domestic and international NGOs to halt female employees from working in the NGO sector, threatening to revoke their license with immediate effect.

Taliban justified the ban, claiming that the women were not observing dress code rules. The move comes in the aftermath of global outrage against the Taliban's ban on women from attending universities earlier this month. The fundamentalist regime has also barred teenage girls from attending secondary school.

"There have been serious complaints regarding the nonobservance of the Islamic hijab and other rules and regulations pertaining to the work of females in national and international organizations," the Islamist group's economy ministry told state press, after he sent the letter to the NGOs asking to comply with the orders. 

Taliban's decision 'reckless and dangerous': G7

In a stern response on Thursday, the G7 Foreign Ministers of Australia, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Norway, Switzerland, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States and the High Representative of the European Union along with Australia, Denmark, Norway, Switzerland, and the Netherlands, in a joint statement, said they have been "gravely concerned that the Taliban's reckless and dangerous order that puts at risk millions of Afghans who depend on humanitarian assistance for their survival".

"We call on the Taliban to urgently reverse this decision," the G7 ministers said in the statement issued by UK's foreign office. Taliban’s "reckless and dangerous" order barring female employees of national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) from the workplace "puts at risk millions of Afghans who depend on humanitarian assistance for their survival," the G7 noted.

It further reminded that the women in Afghanistan play central to humanitarian and basic needs operations. NGOs will be unable to reach the country’s most vulnerable people to provide food, medicine, winterization, and other materials and services with female workers banned, the ministers said. 

"Women are absolutely central to humanitarian and basic needs operations. Unless they participate in aid delivery in Afghanistan, NGOs will be unable to reach the country's most vulnerable people to provide food, medicine, winterization, and other materials and services they need to live," the statement on Thursday read. 

The G7 ministers derided the Taliban's contempt for the rights, freedoms, and welfare of Afghan women and girls, and their disinterest in normal relations with the international community. "We support the Afghan people’s calls for girls and women to return to work, school, and university, and for women to continue to play essential roles in humanitarian and basic needs assistance delivery, and we urge the Taliban to respect the political, economic, social, and cultural rights of women and girls in Afghanistan," they stressed, demanding that the regime takes back its decision.