KABUL, May 31 (News Agencies) - Afghanistan's Taliban militia has ordered foreign women to stop driving vehicles out of respect for local "tradition" and the environment, relief workers said Thursday.
The move comes amid growing tension between the Islamic militia and the United Nations over harassment of aid workers and barriers to the employment of Afghan women during a major humanitarian crisis.
The letter, circulated last week by the militia's religious police, says "it has been seen that some foreign women drive cars in the cities, which is against the Afghan tradition and has a negative impact on the environment."
"In future foreign women must not drive cars and must observe the Afghan tradition of our country and abide by the regulations of the Islamic Emirate [the Taliban]," the letter concludes.
If it is enforced, the order could disrupt relief work at a time when severe drought and relentless civil war have pushed more than a million Afghans to the brink of famine.
Female relief workers in the war-scarred and impoverished Afghan capital said they needed to drive to do their jobs.
"I like driving and it's needed for my work, for my job and for myself," one foreign aid worker said.
"I haven't hired a driver yet, my colleagues are helping me out. Some of us have contacted the authorities to find out the reason [for the ban] but we haven't got any reply yet."
The U.N. Wednesday threatened to close its humanitarian operations in Afghanistan unless the Taliban provided adequate security to relief staff and removed petty obstacles to their work.
U.N. Coordinator for Afghanistan Erick de Mul this week held talks with senior Taliban ministers in Kabul over alleged harassment and problems in the overall operational environment for relief workers.
He said after the talks that most of the problems had been ironed out but the militia's refusal to allow Afghan women to work with foreign relief agencies remained a serious matter of concern.
The Taliban's interpretation of Shari'a law prohibits Afghan women from showing their faces in public, denies them access to state-funded education and bars them from most employment, except in the health sector.
