NEW DELHI: The United Nations Security Council condemned the increasing restrictions on women's rights in Afghanistan - a week after the Taliban banned university education for women in the country. In a press statement, the UNSC urged the Taliban to reverse the restrictions and “reiterated its deep concern of the suspension of schools beyond the sixth grade, and its call for the full, equal, and meaningful participation of women and girls in Afghanistan,” reported news agency AP.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker said, “No country can develop — indeed survive — socially and economically with half its population excluded”. According to him, the “unfathomable restrictions placed on women and girls will not only increase the suffering of all Afghans but, I fear, pose a risk beyond Afghanistan’s borders”.

“This latest decree by the de facto authorities will have terrible consequences for women and all Afghan people. The ban will significantly impair, if not destroy, the capacity of these NGOs to deliver the essential services on which so many vulnerable Afghans depend,” the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights added.

Last week, the Taliban banned all university education for women and announced the exclusion of women from NGO work - which led to global outrage.

Notably, even since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, several stringent measures were taken - particularly regarding the rights of women and minorities - from ordering all the universities to implement new rules related to gender-segregated classrooms and entrances, to ordering all the female presenters on TV channels to cover their faces on air. In Afghanistan's western Herat province, men and women are not allowed to sit together in restaurants, even if they are husband and wife.