New York, 5 April 2023 (dpa/MIA) – The United Nations on Tuesday said that the Taliban authorities extended a ban on Afghan women working with non-governmental organizations to its own staff in the country.

"Our colleagues on the ground at the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) received word of an order by the de facto authorities that bans female national staff members of the UN from working," Stéphane Dujarric, the spokesman for UN Secretary General António Guterres, said in a briefing at the UN headquarters in New York.

"We are still looking into how this development would affect our operations in the country," Dujarric said. "We expect to have more meetings with the de facto authorities tomorrow in Kabul, on which we are trying to seek some clarity."

The spokesman went on to say that Guterres would consider such a ban unacceptable and "frankly inconceivable."

According to Dujarric the ban applies to the whole of Afghanistan.

Earlier on Tuesday, UNAMA had said that "female national UN staff have been prevented from reporting to work in Nangarhar province."

"It goes without saying, but unfortunately, it does need saying, that female staff are essential for the United Nations to deliver life-saving assistance," Dujarric said. "Such orders, as we saw today, violate the fundamental rights of women and infringe upon the principle of non-discrimination."

In December, the Taliban had ordered all national and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to suspend the jobs of their female employees until further notice, provoking outrage from Western countries and international institutions, which threatened to stop operating in the crisis-hit country unless the decree was revoked.

Days after the announcement the Taliban said that the ban did not include female employees of the United Nations, international female staff and female health and nutrition staff.

Since returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban have forcefully implemented a set of discriminatory rules against women and girls in the country.