Following is the text of the WFP press release:

WORLD FOOD PROGRAM

3 Dec 2001

WFP GIVES AFGHAN WOMEN CHANCE TO WORK AGAIN

Kabul, 3 December 2001 -- After years of being banned from any kind of professional work by the Taliban's harsh rule, thousands of women are now getting the chance to return to employment through WFP's Afghan operations.

The Agency is this week mobilizing some 2,424 women to carry out an emergency food distribution in Kabul.

Together with 1,200 men, the women will go door-to-door across the Afghan capital distributing food coupons, which can be exchanged for emergency aid at WFP food depots.

The Kabul operation is part of a WFP region-wide recruitment drive with adverts being placed in Kabul, Quetta, Peshawar and Islamabad appealing for qualified Afghan women to come forward for employment.

The Agency plans to hire professional women capable of designing, implementing and then monitoring its food aid programs.

"WFP's commitment to women is ever more important, not only in an aid capacity but also in recruiting professional Afghan women into our program," said the Agency's Islamabad-based spokeswoman Lindsey Davies on Monday.

"We hope women can come fully into their own by moving and working freely."

WFP's Afghan offices are already employing 15 women full-time: seven are based in Kabul, with others in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Faizabadm, Heart and Mazar-I-Shariff.

For their role in the Kabul emergency distribution, WFP is paying women US$ 20-40 for a week's work depending on the level of their responsibility.

"Being able to work openly for WFP gives me a sense of pride, the chance to rebuild my country and, most importantly, the possibility of feeding my family while I contribute to society and interact with other people -- something that seemed impossible just a short time ago," says Dr. Massouda Jala, Program Officer for WFP in Kabul.

CATCH 22

Except for essential jobs in the health sector, the Taliban's strict interpretation of Islamic rule forbade Afghan women from working outside the home.

WFP's female employees were not even allowed in the Agency's offices although some could work in women's bakeries and other projects.

Often this left WFP in a "Catch 22" situation where its female staff could consult Afghan women on their food needs but the Agency was only allowed to employ men.

"We were so shocked when we heard about the Taliban decree, " recalls Massouda Jala.

"It made us feel depressed, frustrated, angry, shocked, oppressed, inferior and heavy. Now I feel the same as a prisoner or a slave getting released: happy, energetic, relieved and light."

Despite the Taliban's outlaw of female employment, WFP was able to operate some projects for women. Its bakery projects in Kabul and Mazar-I-Shariff (see below) provided break for half a million people of which the majority were women.

The Agency also provided nursing schools with food aid at Kandahar in the south and Herat in the west to train nurses and health care workers; WFP also ran community development and income generating projects, supplying food aid to women in return for making quilts and sweaters to sell.

WFP PROJECTS IN AFGHANISTAN: WOMEN'S BAKERIES

During the Taliban's rule of Afghanistan, WFP-sponsored bakeries represented one of the few job opportunities open to women.

The Agency supplied the flour that allowed women, in particular destitute war widows, to produce the country's traditionally flat bread at about one sixth of the market price for women and children; it also provided the bakers with some kind of income.

At one stage a Taliban clampdown forced WFP to temporarily shut down its bakeries, but the Agency has continued to run its bakery projects -- although during the current crisis

Today, WFP supports 257 bakeries in Afghanistan that provide bread for 400,000 people. Of these, women run a total of 45 bakeries in Kabul and Mazar-I-Shariff

WOMEN: THE QUICKEST SOLUTION TO HUNGER

In nearly every society across the world, women control the flow of food within the household. Yet all too often women, in particular expectant mothers, eat last and least.

As a result, malnourished women give birth to malnourished children often afflicted with physical and mental handicaps and the cycle of poverty and hunger is perpetuated.

Today, seven out of 10 victims of hunger are women and their young children.

Yet experience also shows that in the hands of women, food aid is far more likely to reach the mouths of needy children.

So when WFP drafts new operations, both for emergencies and development, women are top of its priority list.

In emergencies, food aid is increasingly distributed through women.

Likewise women are recognized as having a crucial role in the recovery phase that follows a humanitarian disaster.