The United Nations (UN) Security Council has called for the full, equal and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan, denouncing a ban by the Taliban-led administration on women attending universities or working for humanitarian aid groups.
In a statement, the 15-member council said the ban on women and girls attending secondary school and universities in Afghanistan "represents an increasing erosion for the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
The university ban on women was announced as the Security Council in New York met on Afghanistan last week. Girls have been banned from secondary school since March.
It urged the Taliban "to reopen schools and swiftly reverse these policies and practices, which represents an increasing erosion for the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms."
The Council also condemned the ban on women working for NGOs, adding to warnings of the detrimental impact on aid operations in a country where millions rely on them.
The Council said a ban on female humanitarian workers, announced on Saturday, "would have a significant and immediate impact for humanitarian operations in country," including those of the UN.
"These restrictions contradict the commitments made by the Taliban to the Afghan people as well as the expectations of the international community," the Council said, which also expressed its full support for the UN political mission in Afghanistan, known as UNAMA.
Four major global aid groups, whose humanitarian efforts have reached millions of Afghans, said on Sunday that they were suspending operations because they were unable to run their programmes without female staff.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said on Twitter that the restrictions were "unjustifiable human rights violations and must be revoked."
He added: "Actions to exclude and silence women and girls continue to cause immense suffering and major setbacks to the potential of the Afghan people."
While UN aid chief Martin Griffiths told the Security Council last week that 97% of Afghans live in poverty, two-thirds of the population need aid to survive, while 20m people face acute hunger and 1.1m teenage girls were banned from school.
Earlier, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights warned of the "terrible" consequences such policies would have and that they could destablise Afghan society.
"No country can develop, indeed survive, socially and economically with half its population excluded," Volker Turk said in a statement.
"These unfathomable restrictions placed on women and girls will not only increase the suffering of all Afghans but, I fear, pose a risk beyond Afghanistan's borders."
The Taliban seized power in August last year. They had largely banned education of girls when last in power two decades ago but had said their policies had changed.
The Taliban-led administration has not been recognised internationally.
