The United Nations called on Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers on Sunday to reopen schools for girls in grades 7 to 12, calling the anniversary of their expulsion from high school “shameful.”
The UN said it was increasingly concerned that the policy, along with other restrictions on basic freedoms, would contribute to deepening the country’s economic crisis in the form of greater insecurity, poverty and isolation.
“This is a tragic, shameful and entirely avoidable anniversary,” said Markus Potzel, acting head of the UN mission in Afghanistan.
A year after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan, hardliners look set to dominate the Taliban-led government. Teenage girls are still banned from school and women must cover head to toe in public, with only their eyes visible. The religious group has not fulfilled several promises to allow the girls to return to the classroom. The ban targets grades 7-12, mainly affecting girls between the ages of 12 and 18.
The Taliban reopened high schools to boys while asking girls to stay home. The UN estimates that over a million girls have been unable to attend secondary school in the past year.
“The continued exclusion of girls from high school has no credible justification and has no parallel anywhere in the world. It is deeply damaging to a generation of girls and to Afghanistan’s own future,” said Potzel, who is also the UN Secretary-General’s Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.
To mark Sunday’s anniversary, 50 girls sent a letter titled “A Year of Darkness: A Letter from Afghan Girls to Heads of Muslim Countries and Other World Leaders.” The girls come from the capital Kabul, eastern Nangarhar province and northern Parwan province.
“In the past year we have been denied human rights, such as the right to education, the privilege to work, the freedom to live with dignity, freedom, mobility and speech, and the right to decide and decide for ourselves” . Azadi, an 18-year-old grade 11 student from Kabul, said in the letter. The girls named in the letter only gave their names.
The UN said the denial of education violates the most fundamental rights of girls and women. The world body said it increases the risk of marginalization, violence, exploitation and abuse against girls and is part of a wider range of discriminatory policies and practices targeting women and girls since the de facto authorities took power the summer of 2021.
The UN again called on the Taliban to reverse a series of measures they have introduced to restrict Afghan women and girls from enjoying their basic rights and freedoms.
Since taking power, the Taliban have struggled to govern and remain isolated internationally. An economic downturn has pushed millions more Afghans into poverty and hunger as the flow of foreign aid has slowed to a trickle.
