13 million Afghan employees rendered jobless as Taliban demolish civilian facilities

Taliban have demolished at least 260 civilian facilities in 28 provinces, driving 13 million Afghan people out of civil services, informed Nader Naderi, Afghanistan's Head of Independent Administrative Reform and Civil Services Commission on Thursday.

At least 50,000 civil services employees were left out of a job and a total of 112 projects were stalled due to ongoing conflict between the Taliban and the Afghan government, The Khaama Press reported, citing the Head of Afghan Red Crescent Society (ARCS).Expressing concern over new laws imposed by the Taliban after they captured several more districts in the country, Nadari said that these laws do not allow women to step out of home without relatives.

Naderi has been appointed as a member of the Afghan government negotiating team in Doha.

"Taliban demands the release of the remaining seven thousand prisoners in return for a three-month armistice but the release of five thousand Taliban detainees last year had worsened the situation" Tolo News reported citing Naderi.

Meanwhile, the Taliban has re-imposed repressive laws and retrograde policies on Afghan women that defined its 1996-2001 rule when they enforced their version of Islamic Sharia law.

Last time, when it ruled, the Taliban forced women to cover themselves from head to toe, banned them from working outside the home, severely limited girls' education, and required women to be accompanied by a male relative when they left their homes, said authors Frud Bezhan and Mustafa Sarwar, writing in Gandhara.

Many of those policies have returned in areas now under Taliban control, said the residents of Afghanistan's northeastern countryside. Taliban is also forcing single or widowed women there to marry its fighters. Similar unconfirmed reports have emerged from other provinces under the Islamists' control.

( With inputs from ANI )