GENDER ALERT NO. 3: Out of jobs, into poverty – the impact of the ban on Afghan women working in NGOs

This Gender Alert concludes that the 24 December 2022 ban: (1) is discriminatory and dictates who humanitarian actors can(not) employ, and who they can reach with assistance; (2) has multilayered implications that go beyond the inability of reaching women and girls with life-saving assistance, including dealing a further blow to the Afghan economy amid the ongoing crisis; and (3) speeds up the erasure of Afghan women and girls from all aspects of Afghan public and private life.

[Methodological note:] To develop this Gender Alert, two weeks after the 24 December 2022 directive was issued by the Taliban, UN Women consulted 165 Afghan women who, prior to the announcement of the directive, had worked in national and international humanitarian NGOs, covering various different sectors, professional backgrounds, ages, and locations. Consultations reached women across Afghanistan and across the different humanitarian sectors.

These consultations were supplemented by an online survey completed by 127 national non-governmental organizations (NGOs), 79 per cent of which were led by women (with 47 per cent of the NGOs being staffed by at least 70 per cent women). The primary data collection methods used to inform this Gender Alert seek to provide insights into trends and patterns. They are not nationally representative and do not seek to replace state-wide data collection efforts.