ISLAMABAD: The UN children’s agency on Saturday urged Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to immediately lift a lingering ban on girls’ education to save the future of millions who have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan without girls beyond sixth grade. The ban, said the agency, has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with the Taliban justifying the ban saying it doesn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law.
“For over three years, the rights of girls in Afghanistan have been violated,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement. “All girls must be allowed to return to school now. If these capable, bright young girls continue to be denied an education, then the repercussions will last for generations.”
A ban on the education of girls will harm the future of millions of Afghan girls, she said, adding that if the ban persists until 2030, “more than four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school.” The consequences, she added, will be “catastrophic.”
Russell warned that the decline in female doctors and midwives will leave women and girls without crucial medical care. This situation is projected to result in an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths. “These are not just numbers, they represent lives lost and families shattered,” she said.
The Afghan Taliban government earlier this year skipped a Pakistan-hosted global conference where Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the state of women’s and girl’s rights in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.
UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan
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UNICEF calls on the Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with Taliban justifying ban
- The ban has deprived 400,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million, the UN agency says
Rubio says new governance bodies for Gaza will be in place soon
- Rubio said progress had been made recently in identifying Palestinians to join the technocratic group and that Washington aimed to get the governance bodies in place “very soon,” without offering a specific timeline.
WASHINGTON: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that a new governance structure for Gaza — made up of an international board and a group of Palestinian technocrats — would be in place soon, followed by the deployment of foreign troops, as the US hopes to cement a fragile ceasefire in Israel’s war in the Palestinian enclave.
Rubio, speaking at a year-end news conference, said the status quo was not sustainable in Gaza, where Israel has continued to strike Hamas targets while the group has reasserted its control since the October peace agreement brokered by the US.
“That’s why we have a sense of urgency about bringing phase one to its full completion, which is the establishment of the Board of Peace, and the establishment of the Palestinian technocratic authority or organization that’s going to be on the ground, and then the stabilization force comes closely thereafter,” Rubio said.
Rubio said progress had been made recently in identifying Palestinians to join the technocratic group and that Washington aimed to get the governance bodies in place “very soon,” without offering a specific timeline. Rubio was speaking after the US Central Command hosted a conference in Doha this week with partner nations to plan the International Stabilization Force for Gaza.
Two US officials said last week that international troops could be deployed in the strip as early as next month, following the UN Security Council’s November vote to authorize the force.
It remains unclear how Hamas will be disarmed, and countries considering contributing troops to the ISF are wary that Hamas will engage their soldiers in combat.
Rubio did not specify who would be responsible for disarming Hamas and conceded that countries contributing troops want to know the ISF’s specific mandate and how it will be funded.
“I think we owe them a few more answers before we can ask anybody to commit firmly, but I feel very confident that we have a number of nation states acceptable to all sides in this who are willing to step forward and be a part of that stabilization force,” Rubio said, noting that Pakistan was among the countries that had expressed interest.
Establishing security and governance was key to securing donor funding for reconstruction in Gaza, Rubio added.
“Who’s going to pledge billions of dollars to build things that are going to get blown up again because a war starts?” Rubio said, discussing the possibility of a donor conference to raise reconstruction funds.
“They want to know who’s in charge, and they want to know that there’s security so and that there’ll be long term stability.”
