UN urges support for Afghan women’s aid five years into Taliban rule

More than half of women’s organisations operating in Afghanistan could cease operations within next year: UN Women.

By David Brunnstrom Aug 14 (Reuters) - The United Nations appealed to donors on Friday not to cut funding for women's programs in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, saying this would add to suffering in a country where conditions for women are already the worst in the world.

Women across the country speak of public floggings, losing their jobs, and barriers to healthcare that endanger lives.

Decrees restricting the rights of women and girls to study, work, travel and act independently now threaten to damage Afghanistan permanently, experts say.

The United Nations agency for women’s rights observed the fifth anniversary of the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan by noting that women have been “systematically stripped of their rights” and effectively “erased from public life” by the Islamist regime.

Afghanistan only country where girls formally barred from secondary, higher education, Unesco saysAn estimated 2.4 million Afghan girls remain excluded from secondary education, five years after the Taliban returned to power, according to a report by Unesco.Unesco said Afghanistan remains the only country in the world

Five years after the Taliban seized power, women and girls in Afghanistan have been systematically stripped of their rights, UN agencies said on Wednesday. De facto authorities have issued more than 100 decrees curbing education, work and freedom of movement – restrictions now compounded by deep cuts to aid on the grou