UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammad expressed alarm to Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) officials in Kandahar over the situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, the United Nations said on Friday.

Mohammad finished a four-day visit to Afghanistan on Friday, after also meeting IEA officials in the capital Kabul. This comes after IEA banned most female aid workers from working and stopped women and girls from attending high school and university, Reuters reported.

“My message was very clear: while we recognize the important exemptions made, these restrictions present Afghan women and girls with a future that confines them in their own homes, violating their rights and depriving the communities of their services,” Mohammad said in a statement.

In Kandahar – home to the IEA’s supreme spiritual leader who has the final say on major decisions – Mohammad met with Deputy Governor Hayatullah Mubarak.

He told her that the IEA wanted a strong relationship with the world, the removal of sanctions on its leaders and to be able to send an ambassador to the UN, said the Kandahar information office.

The UN General Assembly last month postponed for the second time a decision on whether the IEA can send an ambassador to New York. Dozens of IEA leaders are also subject to UN sanctions.

No government has formally recognized the IEA since it seized power in August 2021.

“Right now, Afghanistan is isolating itself, in the midst of a terrible humanitarian crisis and one of the most vulnerable nations on earth to climate change,” Mohammad said.