In a country where women are barred from university and secondary schools, and banned from many workplaces, the world’s biggest aid operation is now at risk of failing those who desperately need it.
And it’s happening in the cruellest depths of winter when famine and frostbite are knocking at the door.
In the middle of a deepening crisis, the most senior UN delegation to visit Afghanistan since the Taliban swept to power in 2021 has flown into Kabul.
The UN secretary general dispatched his deputy Amina Mohammad, the UN’s most senior woman, with a team which also includes the head of UN Women, Sima Bahous.
They’ve been tasked with speaking to senior Taliban leaders at the highest-possible level about reversing restrictions, including a new ban on female aid workers, now seen to endanger urgent life-saving humanitarian operations.
“People are freezing and time is running out,” emphasises Ramiz Alakbarov, the UN’s humanitarian co-ordinator in Afghanistan in a statement which emphasises the all too obvious.
“We need to build shelters now but, in this conservative society, if we don’t have female aid workers to speak to women in the families, we can’t do this work.
“It’s not just that the UN has sent a senior delegation, they’ve also sent one headed by women with decades of experience.
“If there are women in the room, there is a greater chance that the uncomfortable conversations about women will take place,” said one aid official who often sits in the room during efforts to reconcile the Taliban government’s demands with international norms on human rights.
There’s often been criticism that, all too often, foreign delegations send men-only teams which reinforce conservative Taliban views of their world.
The world’s top table, the UN Security Council, recently condemned with unusual unanimity the “increasing erosion for the respect of human rights and fundamental freedoms”.
The first Taliban official to meet the visiting delegation in Kabul was acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
On social media, his spokesman said the meeting began with the minister expressing hope that the “delegation would portray Afghanistan’s true picture to the world”.
He also reiterated the Taliban argument that the absence of international recognition of their rule, along with sanctions, was hindering their ability to govern effectively. (BBC)