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

UN condemns 'shameful' year-long ban on Afghan girls' education

KABUL: The United Nations advised the Taliban on Sunday (Sep 18) to reopen high schools for girls throughout Afghanistan, condemning the particular ban that started exactly a year ago since “tragic and shameful”.

Weeks after the Taliban seized power in August last year, the hardline Islamists reopened higher schools for children on Sep 18, 2021, but prohibited secondary schoolgirls through attending classes.

Months later on Scar 23, the education ministry opened secondary universities for girls, but inside hours the Taliban leadership ordered classes to become shut again .

Since then more than a million teenage young ladies have been deprived associated with education across the country, the particular United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.

“This is a tragic, shameful, and entirely preventable anniversary, ” mentioned Markus Potzel, the particular acting head associated with UNAMA in a declaration.

“It can be profoundly damaging to a generation of women and to the future of Afghanistan itself, ” he or she said, adding the ban had no parallel in the world.

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

“A year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will in no way get back, ” Guterres said on Tweets.

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

Various Taliban officials state the ban is just temporary, but they also have wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closures – from a lack of money to time required to remodel the syllabus along Islamic outlines.

Earlier this month, the education ressortchef (umgangssprachlich) was quoted by local media as saying it was the cultural issue, as many rural people did not want their children to attend school.

After seizing power on Aug 15 last year amid a chaotic withdrawal of foreign forces, the particular Taliban promised a softer version of their harsh Islamist regime that ruled Afghanistan between 1996 plus 2001.

But within days they began imposing severe restrictions on ladies and women to comply with their austere vision of Islam – effectively squeezing them out of public life.

Apart from closing high educational institutions for girls, the Taliban have barred females from many authorities jobs and also purchased them to cover up in public, preferably with an all-encompassing burqa.

Some high educational institutions for girls have remained open in provinces away from the central power bases of Kabul and Kandahar due to pressure from households and tribal frontrunners.