UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The highest-ranking woman in the United Nations arrived in Kabul on Tuesday at the head of a delegation promoting the rights of women and girls, a response to the recent crackdown by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers.

Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammed, a former Nigerian Cabinet minister and a Muslim, was joined by Sima Bahous, executive director of UN Women, the U.N. agency promoting gender equality and women’s rights, and Assistant Secretary General for political affairs Khaled Khiari, U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq said.

Haq said he could not disclose their schedule or specific meetings in Kabul for security reasons.

U.N. officials have held a series of high-level consultations across the Gulf, Asia and Europe “to discuss the situation in Afghanistan in an effort to promote and protect women’s and girls’ rights, peaceful coexistence and sustainable development,” the spokesman said.

Members of the delegation met with leaders of the 57-nation Organization of the Islamic Conference, the Islamic Development Bank, groups of Afghan women in Ankara, Turkey, and Islamabad, and a group of ambassadors and special envoys to Afghanistan based in Doha, the capital of Qatar, he said.

“Throughout the visits,” Haq said, “countries and partners recognized the critical role of the U.N. in finding a pathway to a lasting solution as well as the need to continue to deliver lifesaving support” and asked that efforts be intensified “to reflect the urgency of the situation.”

A Dec. 24 order from the Taliban barring aid groups from employing women is paralyzing deliveries that help keep millions of Afghans alive, and threatening humanitarian services countrywide. As another result of the ban, thousands of women who work for such organizations across the war-battered country are facing the loss of income they desperately need to feed their own families. The Taliban previously banned girls from attending secondary schools and women from attending universities and issued restrictions on foreign travel and their movements within the country.

The Taliban took power again in August 2021 following the chaotic withdrawal of U.S. and NATO forces after 20 years in Afghanistan. As it did when it first ruled the country from 1996 to 2001, the militant group has gradually reimposed Islamic law, or Sharia, driving women out of schools, jobs and aid work, and increasingly into their homes.

The officials of other nations with whom the U.N. leaders met said it was important for the international community to unite and speak with one voice, Haq noted.

“The need for a revitalized and realistic political pathway was consistently highlighted and all remained firm on the fundamental principles, including women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and public life in Afghanistan,” he said.

Haq said the groups agreed in principle to hold an international conference on women and girls in the Muslim world in March.

Mursal Nabizada was among the few female parliamentarians who stayed in Kabul after the Taliban seized power in August 2021. Police say one of her bodyguards was also killed in the attack on Sunday.

Karen Decker, the U.S. chargé d’affaires for Afghanistan, tweeted: “Hold the perpetrators accountable!”

“Angered, heartbroken by murder of Mursal Nabizada – a tragic loss. I offer Mursal’s family my condolences and hope to see them receive justice for this senseless act,” Decker also said in her tweet.

Nabizada’s brother was also wounded in the attack, according to Khalid Zadran, spokesman for the Kabul police chief in the Taliban administration. A police investigation was underway, he added.

Abdullah Abdullah, a top official in Afghanistan’s former Western-backed government, said he was saddened by Nabizada’s death and hoped the perpetrators would be punished. He described her as a “representative and servant of the people.”

Nabizada was elected in 2019 to represent Kabul and stayed in office until the Taliban takeover. She was originally from eastern Nangarhar province. She also worked at a private non-governmental group, the Institute for Human Resources Development and Research.

After their takeover, the Taliban initially said they would not impose the same harsh rules over society as they did during their first rule of Afghanistan in the late 1990s.

But they have progressively imposed more restrictions, particularly on women. They have banned women and girls from schooling beyond the sixth grade, barred them from most jobs and demanded they cover their faces when outside.

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The U.N. criticized Afghanistan’s Taliban-controlled central bank for making “misleading and unhelpful” remarks about cash destined for humanitarian work. It comes amid growing tension between the global body and the country’s rulers over bans on female education and employment.

The U.N. uses the money mostly to provide millions of Afghans with critical humanitarian assistance, flying in cash because of banking disruptions since the Taliban seized power in August 2021.

Foreign aid stopped after the takeover. World governments imposed sanctions, halted bank transfers and froze billions more in Afghanistan’s currency reserves, unwilling to work with the Taliban, given their rule in the late 1990s and their refusal to educate girls and allow women to work.

The Taliban have, in the last 18 months, barred females from education beyond sixth grade, including university, from public spaces and from most employment.

Most recently, they barred women from working at national and international non-governmental organizations. That has drawn condemnation from the U.N., aid agencies and foreign governments and raised concerns that Afghans will suffer and even die if female workers continue to be excluded from humanitarian work. The Taliban show no signs of reversing these edicts, despite repeated calls to do so and visits from high-level U.N. and other foreign officials.

Their chief spokesman says authorities will not allow un-Islamic activities in Afghanistan and that politics should be kept out of humanitarian aid.

The U.N. in Afghanistan issued a statement late Saturday in response to a tweet from the Taliban-controlled central bank, which said a package of $40 million was deposited in a commercial bank in the Afghan capital, Kabul. It posted a photo of wads of cash.

“Da Afghanistan Bank (the Afghan central bank) appreciates any principled move that will bring currency to the country and help the needy in the society,” the tweet said.

But the U.N. said its cash is placed into designated accounts in a private bank and distributed directly to its agencies and a small number of “approved and vetted” humanitarian partners in Afghanistan.

“None of the cash brought is deposited in the Central Bank of Afghanistan nor provided to the Taliban de facto authorities by the UN,” the world body said in a statement. “Announcements by non-UN entities about UN. fund shipments are misleading & unhelpful.”

The United Nations has flown in around $1.8 billion in funds for the U.N. and its partners to carry out their work since December 2021.

It said the amount of cash brought in to Afghanistan is proportional to the U.N.’s program of humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.

“If the volume of assistance that the UN is able to provide diminishes the amount of cash shipped will be reduced,” the U.N. said.

It said the cash transfer mechanism has proved to be essential in the provision of life-saving assistance to more than 25 million Afghans.