Inside Geneva: aid without women in Afghanistan

The Taliban have banned women from working for aid agencies. This week on the Inside Geneva podcast, host Imogen Foulkes asks humanitarians what this means for Afghanistan’s future.

“How can women be able to receive healthcare when there are no women doctors?” asks Adam Combs of the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC).

Afghan women and girls are banned from secondary school and university too.

“If there is no woman attending school, and then university, who will be tomorrow’s doctors, tomorrow’s midwives, nurses?” asks Filipe Ribeiro of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF).

28 million people in Afghanistan need humanitarian aid, 6 million are close to famine. Why is the focus on restricting what women do?

“These are acts committed for the purpose of establishing dominance and systematic oppression by men over women in all aspects of public life as well as private life,” says Pooja Patel of the International Service for Human Rights (ISHR).

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