UN condemns ‘shameful’ year-long ban on Afghan girls’ education

The UN mission in Afghanistan urged the Taliban to open schools for girls, saying a year-long ban on keeping girls out of high schools was shameful and “entirely avoidable.”

The United Nations urged the Taliban on Sunday to reopen high schools for girls across Afghanistan, condemning the ban that began exactly a year ago as “tragic and shameful”.

Weeks after the Taliban seized power in August last year, they reopened high schools for boys on September 18 but banned secondary schoolgirls from attending classes.

Months later on March 23, the education ministry opened secondary schools for girls, but within hours the Taliban leadership ordered them shut again.

Since then, more than a million teenage girls have been deprived of education across the country, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

“This is a tragic, shameful, and entirely avoidable anniversary,” Markus Potzel, the acting head of UNAMA, said in a statement.

“It is profoundly damaging to a generation of girls and to the future of Afghanistan itself,” he said, adding the ban had no parallel in the world.

UN chief Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to revoke the ban.

“A year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will never get back,” Guterres said on Twitter.

“Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them back in.”

Several Taliban officials say the ban is only temporary, but they have also wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closures — from a lack of funds to time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.

Earlier this month, the education minister, Noorullah Munir, was quoted by local media as saying it was a cultural issue, as many rural people did not want their teenage daughters to attend school.

‘Year of disappointment’

Grade 12 student, Kawsar, who gave a fictitious name to protect her identity, said she was frustrated that her high school has been shut for a year now.

“It’s been a dark year, a year full of stress and disappointment,” she said.

“It’s our primary right to have an education. The society needs female doctors and teachers, only boys cannot meet all needs of the society.”

Many conservative Afghan clerics within the Taliban are sceptical of modern education.

Last month, the authorities said they were increasing compulsory religious classes in government universities, though no subjects from the current curriculum would be dropped.

Reacting to the education minister’s comments in local media, Kainat, a school teacher, said parents and families across Afghanistan were keen to educate their daughters.

“They want their girls to achieve what they aim, every family wants their kids, including girls, to serve the nation,” said Kainat, who also gave a fictitious name.

“It’s wrong to say that people in Afghanistan do not want their girls to be educated.”

After seizing power on August 15 last year during the chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces, the Taliban promised a softer version of their regime in Afghanistan between 1996 and 2001.

But within days, they began imposing restrictions on girls and women — effectively squeezing them out of public life.

Apart from closing high schools for girls, the Taliban have barred women from many government jobs and also ordered them to cover up in public, preferably with an all-encompassing burqa.

Some high schools for girls have remained open in provinces away from the central power bases of Kabul and Kandahar because of pressure from families and tribal leaders.

Will the Taliban allow girls to go to schools?

The Taliban officially banned secondary education for girls after taking power last year, but some schools quietly opened in recent weeks.

The AFP news agency reported that girls were seen wearing hijabs and heading to schools earlier this month in some provinces, even though they were told there was no change in the official education policy.

The Taliban then reportedly closed those schools, with local media footage showing girls in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktia province protesting against the Taliban’s decision just a few days ago.

Afghans are now watching closely to see whether the Taliban will allow girls to attend schools.

In the two decades between Taliban administrations in Afghanistan, girls were allowed to go to schools and women were allowed to work.

Girls belong in schools, says UN chief

Several Taliban officials say that the ban on schooling for girls is only temporary but they are yet to enact any change in official policy. They have also not provided any time frame for opening schools.

The hardline Islamist group have made a number of excuses for keeping schools closed, from saying they needed more funding to saying they needed more time to restructure the school syllabus.

The UN Secretary-General Antonia Guterres on Sunday tweeted it was “a year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will never get back.”

“Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them in,” Guterres said.