Taking Humanitarianism Hostage the Case of Afghanistan & Multilateral Organisations — Global Issues
NEW YORK, January 12 (IPS) – Can you imagine what would happen if women were simply not allowed to step out of their homes let alone go to work for a living? When women choose to do so and they can afford it, it’s a matter of choice. When women can barely, as is the case in Afghanistan nowNot only are half the population imprisoned, but children go hungry and communities sink deeper and deeper into poverty.
World Bank data (incomplete), indicating the average number of female-headed households (i.e. households where women are the main – if not the only – breadwinner) , is about 25%.
That means, on average, a quarter of households worldwide depend on women’s income. Children, families, communities and countries – depend on the work of women, who make up a quarter of their workforce.
Economists are still pointing to clear challenges in counting female workers, which often disproportionately straddle the boundaries of the formal economy, so that women continue to play a role in the workforce. reserve workers and frontline workers in the process of industrialization.
Economists working to document these characteristics also point out that as soon as these boundaries widen or change, women are expelled or pushed into the shadow of the informal economy. and work-based labor, considers it a failure all too often to recognize the importance of the type of work in which many women are engaged, both to help keep the economy running, and to enable the expansion of and growth.
The Covid-19 pandemic should have led to the realization that everyone is needed on deck, with so many women truly needed as first responders – the backbone of the crisis. public health crisis – everywhere in the world.
As economies plunge and recession hits many of us, all economies need to stay afloat, if not expand and grow. And beyond these very real challenges to counting women’s work – and making it count – there is another very important fact: culture. Afraid that we only think of the vagaries of women taking on “men’s jobs” (whatever that means in today’s world), we need to stop being blind to reality. that women need to serve other women.
In fact, in many parts of the world, including the supposedly free and ‘equal’ Western world, many women still prefer to receive direct services to save lives from other women – in public health, hygiene, at all levels of education, in the nutrition space, and much, much more.
Let us now pause for a moment and consider humanitarian disaster zones where women and girls often need care – and this can only be done by and through women. is different.
Then let’s picture a reality one step further – let’s call it a socially conservative country, facing a humanitarian disaster and heavily dependent on international organizations ( government and non-governmental organizations) to receive the necessary humanitarian assistance.
How is it conceivable that in such a setting, women could be excluded from service? However, this is exactly what the Taliban decreed on December 24, banning women from working in national and international NGOs. And this is after they banned women from going to college.
A lot of international non-governmental organization suspended their work in Afghanistan, explaining that they could not work without female employees – as a matter of principle, but also a matter of practical necessity. However, the United Nations – the leading multilateral organization – continues to see how it can compromise Taliban rule, for the ‘greater good – real humanitarian need’.
Thank goodness they are letting the UN continue to work with their female staff, in a way. We will not fail to deliver on humanitarian needs, another way of thinking of the United Nations.
Of course, humanitarian needs are essential to human survival – and therefore, should never be taken hostage. But why is the United Nations responsible only for humanitarian needs?
Meanwhile, the Taliban claims that the decrees on women’s work and education are a matter of religion, a claim that, at this time, is not strongly challenged by another multilateral entity – the Organization. Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), made up of 56 governments and members of the United Nations.
While individual governments have spoken out, the multilateral entity has remained relatively silent on the Islamic justice of such a decree. Is it because this multilateral religious entity sees no need to talk about humanitarian needs?
Or is it because it sees no value in the difficult economic realities where women’s self-determination is central? Or is it perhaps because there is no consensus on the “justification” behind such edicts?
In light of these hostage humanitarian relief efforts, a group of female faith leaders came together to ask some simple questions about two related multilateral entities. They have mailed out more than 150 registered international NGOs.
Multilateralism is seen as the guarantor of all human rights and dignity, for all, at all times. But as governmental regimes wane, so too do the traditional multilateral entities heavily dependent on those governments. The time has come for community-based transnational networks based on multigenerational, multicultural, gender-sensitive leaders.
Pastor Dr. Chloe Bryer is the Executive Director, Interfaith Center of New York; Professor Azza Karam as Secretary General, Religion for Peace; Ruth Messinger as Social Justice Consultant, Jewish Theological Seminary; and Negina Yari as Country Manager, Afghanistans4Tomorrow
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