Send us a man to do your job so we can sack you, Taliban tell female officials

A teacher at a school in Kabul. Only female healthcare workers and teachers can still go to work. Women working in other fields are forced to stay home now. Photograph: Aamir Qureshi/AFP/Getty

The Taliban have asked women working at Afghanistan’s finance ministry to send a male relative to do their job a year after female public-sector workers were barred from government work and told to stay at home.

Women who worked in government positions were sent home from their jobs shortly after the Taliban took power in August 2021, and have been paid heavily reduced salaries to do nothing.