Stay home, say Taliban to female Kabul city employees

Kabul, Sep 19: The interim mayor of Afghanistan''s capital says many female city employees have been ordered to stay home by the country's new Taliban rulers.

Hamdullah Namony told reporters Sunday that only women who could not be replaced by men have been permitted to report to work. He says this includes skilled workers in the design and engineering departments as well as female attendants of public toilets for women.

Namony''s comments were another sign that the Taliban are enforcing their harsh interpretation of Islam, including restrictions on women in public life, despite their initial promises of tolerance and inclusion. In their previous rule in the 1990s, the Taliban had barred girls and women from schools and jobs.

The mayor says a final decision about female employees in Kabul municipal departments is still pending, and that they would draw their salaries in the meantime.

He says that before the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan last month, just under one-third of close to 3,000 city employees were women who worked in all departments.