A year has passed since nearly one million female students in Afghanistan have been deprived of education, but there is still no news of the opening of girls’ schools at the secondary levels.
Marking the anniversary, Antonio Guterres, the Secretary General of the United Nations tweeted on Sunday: “A year of lost knowledge and opportunity that they will never get back. Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them back in.” The Office of the United Nations Assistant in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has also issued a statement calling for the immediate reopening of girls’ schools. Markuss Potzel, head of the UNAMA office, called this anniversary “a tragic, shameful, and entirely avoidable.”
“The ongoing exclusion of girls from high school has no credible justification and has no parallel anywhere in the world,” read the UNAMA statement.
The Taliban claimed last year that they would open girls’ schools after establishing a framework, and even declared March 23 as reopening day. But that very day they closed girls’ schools until further notice.
Last Sunday, the Taliban’s education minister claimed the decision was made in accordance with the culture of the Afghan people. He said: “If you ask the elders in the mosque what percentage of people are ready to send their 16- or 17-year-old daughters to school, then you don’t need to ask me. We lived in Afghan society, and we know people’s culture.”
The statement was met with strong reactions from people who said that denying girls from education is not Afghan culture, but Taliban policy.
Hafizah, a student who studied in the eighth grade until last year and dreamed of becoming a doctor in the future, told Zan Times: “The Taliban do not want Afghan women and girls to make progress and work for their and their country’s future.”
She continued: “It is very difficult to go to school for eight years, but one day they tell you that you no longer have the right to study. Then you know that you will not reach your dreams. All our hopes have been destroyed by the arrival of the Taliban.”
