By Emma Farge
GENEVA (Reuters) -The U.N. refugee agency (UNHCR) has closed eight centres providing support to Afghan refugees forced back to the country because Taliban authorities are preventing female U.N. staff from entering them, an official said on Friday.
The United Nations says Pakistan is driving Afghan refugees back home against their will, warning that around 1 million people could be affected. In the first week of September alone, nearly 100,000 people crossed back, UNHCR data showed.
Arafat Jamal, UNHCR Representative to Afghanistan, said it closed eight centres providing cash and other support to returnees on Sept. 9 because of the ban on female aid workers.
“This was an operational decision. It is not a decision taken to punish anyone or to make a statement, but simply it demonstrates that we cannot work without female workers in certain circumstances,” he told a Geneva press briefing by video link from Kabul.
“It is a huge step, and it is creating an enormous amount of suffering for these people,” he said, adding that these centres typically helped around 7,000 people a day.
The work at the centres involves personal interviews and biometrics which he said cannot be done by men on Afghan women, he added.
Some of those deported from Pakistan recently are among those who have lost their homes in the country’s worst earthquake in years that struck on the night of August 31 into September 1 and was followed by powerful aftershocks.
The United Nations called on Thursday for the Taliban administration to lift restrictions on its local female staff, warning that aid for earthquake victims and other vulnerable Afghans is at risk.
While the restrictions have been in place for years, Jamal said they were now being more strictly enforced, adding that military observers had been placed outside its compounds to enforce the ban.
“The reasons now for the reinforcement are unclear, but what I can say is that it’s been done in quite a dramatic fashion,” he added. Negotiations with the Taliban continue on this point, he added, and he hopes to reopen the centres.
(Reporting by Emma Farge, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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