No UN Female Employee Harassed in Afghanistan, Taliban Says

MOSCOW (Sputnik) - No female employee of the United Nations has ever been detained or harassed in Afghanistan despite opposite statements of the UN assistance mission in the country, Bilal Karimi, a spokesman for the Taliban*, said on Monday.

"No female employee of United Nations has been harassed or detained in Afghanistan. Of course, in Kandahar... workers asked for information from a group of women, when it became clear that there were women belonging to the United Nations, they withdrew and no problem arose," the spokesman wrote on Twitter.

According to Karimi, the UN statements about the incident are untrue.

Earlier in the day, the UN mission said that its Afghan female staff had been intimidated in the country. In particular,  three Afghan women working for the UN were allegedly detained on Monday for questioning.

“The United Nations calls for an immediate end to all such acts of intimidation and harassment targeting its Afghan female staff, calling on the de facto authorities to reiterate and enforce explicit guarantees for the safety and security of all UN personnel operating in Afghanistan in a manner consistent with Afghanistan’s obligations under international law,” the UN said in a press release.

*The Taliban is under UN sanctions for terrorist activities.