Kabul, June 13 (EFE).– Nearly 1.5 million Afghan girls have spent 1,000 days out of schools, living on margins under the de facto Taliban government’s gender apartheid.
The Taliban banned education for teenage girls in Afghanistan a month after the Islamists stormed to power in Kabul in August 2021. In December 2022, they extended the ban on university education for women and barred them from working in NGOs.
The Taliban diktats and widespread restrictions on the rights of women and girls have included curbing their freedom of movement, attire and behavior, access to education, work, health and justice.
The United Nations has labelled the treatment of women by the Taliban and systematic restriction of their human rights as “gender apartheid.”
“Today marks a sad and sobering milestone: 1,000 days since the announcement banning girls in Afghanistan from attending secondary schools,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a press statement.
“1,000 days out-of-school amounts to three billion learning hours lost.”
Russell said that for 1.5 million girls, the systematic exclusion “is not only a blatant violation of their right to education, but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health.”
She said the rights of children, especially girls, could not be held hostage to politics since their lives, futures, hopes and dreams were hanging in the balance.
“No country can move forward when half its population is left behind.”
She said the impact of the ban went beyond the girls themselves since it “exacerbates the ongoing humanitarian crisis and has serious ramifications for Afghanistan’s economy and development trajectory.”
The UNICEF chief noted that education “protects girls from early marriage, malnutrition and other health problems, and bolsters their resilience to disasters like the floods, drought, and earthquakes that frequently plague Afghanistan.”
“As we mark this grim milestone, I urge the de facto authorities to allow all children to resume learning immediately. And I urge the international community to remain engaged and support these girls who need us more than ever.”
The ban on education began in September 2021, following a summer school break and school closures due to a spike in violence triggered by the Taliban’s offensive, the withdrawal of international troops, and the Islamist group’s victory in the war and return to power.
Although schools reopened a few days later, on the first day of classes, all secondary schools sent girls home as a “temporary” measure by the regime. This was followed by a ban on universities and the loss of many jobs for women.
Education for girls is currently an opportunity for very few young women, with access limited to small, clandestine, informal schools, and some type of training provided by national and international agencies active in the country.
Currently, girls can only attend primary-level schools.
According to UNICEF, the UN agency and its partners are providing education to 2.7 million children in primary schools, running community-based classes for 600,000 children – two-thirds of them girls – training teachers, and “doing everything we can to keep the educational infrastructure going.” EFE
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