UN urges support for Afghan women amid tightening Taliban curbs

The United Nations appealed to donors on Friday not to cut funding for women's programs in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, saying this would add to suffering in a country where conditions for women are already the worst in the world.



Despite ever-deteriorating conditions for women five years after the Taliban's return to power, funding shortfalls mean more than half of 74 women's organizations surveyed in April are likely to have to suspend operations or close in the next year, just when they are most needed, Susan Ferguson, U.N. Women's special representative in Afghanistan, told reporters.



Ferguson said the Taliban had imposed more than 100 decrees restricting women's rights since returning to power, affecting nearly every aspect of their daily lives, from education and employment to freedom of movement, healthcare and access to justice.



Girls are barred from secondary schools and universities, and more than half of 3,200 women surveyed by U.N. Women said they now left their homes only once or twice a month. In a sign of their deepening isolation, seven in 10 women described their mental health as bad or very bad, she said.