RASC News Agency: Fresh reports from Kabul reveal a chilling escalation in the Taliban’s war on women: armed and unidentified men have been targeting the families of Afghanistani women employed by the United Nations, coercing them to pressure these women into abandoning their jobs. The campaign, which is believed to have intensified in late May 2025, underscores the Taliban’s increasingly aggressive and coordinated efforts to expel women from all spheres of public life this time by weaponizing fear and familial intimidation. According to credible sources, these incidents involve systematic surveillance and harassment. UN female staff have reportedly been followed from their workplaces to their homes, and male relatives have been forced under duress to sign written and video-recorded pledges stating they will prevent the women in their families from returning to work. These threats have created an atmosphere of terror, aimed not only at the individual employees but at the broader principle of female professional participation.
A senior UN official in Kabul, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Independent:
“Women have been intercepted and threatened outside UN offices. Some were warned that if they showed up to work again, their lives would be in danger. It’s a direct attack on humanitarian operations and the women sustaining them.” These coercive actions are part of what observers describe as a systematic, state-tolerated campaign of intimidation, designed to dismantle any remaining infrastructure of international engagement that includes women. Families have been placed under immense pressure to submit to Taliban-imposed social controls, effectively criminalizing women’s employment under threat of violence.
In response, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) issued a formal complaint to the de facto Taliban authorities and is reportedly investigating the incidents. UNAMA stressed that while temporary security measures have been implemented to safeguard personnel, the organization remains committed to delivering life-saving assistance to the Afghanistani population. Similarly, the World Food Programme (WFP) has advised its female staff to work remotely until further notice. The organization clarified, however, that essential aid delivery particularly to vulnerable households headed by women will not be suspended. Despite escalating restrictions, the presence of female international staff remains indispensable to Afghanistan’s humanitarian response. A UN source noted:
“Women are integral to our operations, from food distribution to administration. These threats have severely limited their ability to move safely, but we will not abandon those who depend on our aid especially women and children.” When approached for comment, the Taliban’s Ministry of Interior claimed it was aware of the threats and asserted that no individual or group has the right to intimidate UN personnel. The ministry vaguely promised to pursue and punish those responsible, but such assurances ring hollow in a regime that has institutionalized gender apartheid and enforced it with impunity. Since the NATO withdrawal in August 2021, the United Nations has played a vital role in supporting over 23 million people in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban’s systematic repression of women including professional, educational, and humanitarian workers has placed these efforts under grave threat. The targeting of UN female employees is not merely an assault on individual freedoms; it is a strategic move to dismantle the last remnants of international resistance to Taliban misogyny.
The Independent concludes that Afghanistan’s complex political and social crisis has reached a new low, where even the most neutral, life-saving humanitarian efforts are not spared from the regime’s ideological war against women. If the Taliban’s unchecked brutality continues, it will not only imperil humanitarian aid but also cement the total erasure of women from Afghanistani public life.
