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
France honors fallen soldiers in Afghanistan after Trump’s false claim about NATO troops
- In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan
PARIS: A senior French government official said Monday the memory of the French soldiers who died in Afghanistan should not be tarnished following US President Donald Trump’s false assertion that troops from non-US NATO countries avoided the front line during that war.
Alice Rufo, the minister delegate at the Defense Ministry, laid a wreath at a monument in downtown Paris dedicated to those who died for France in overseas operations. Speaking to reporters, Rufo said the ceremony had not been planned until the weekend, adding that it was crucial to show that “we do not accept that their memory be insulted.”
In October 2001, nearly a month after the Sept. 11 attacks, the US led an international coalition in Afghanistan to destroy Al-Qaeda, which had used the country as its base, and the group’s Taliban hosts.
Alongside the US were troops from dozens of countries, including from NATO, whose mutual-defense mandate had been triggered for the first time after the attacks on New York and Washington. In an interview with Fox Business Network in Davos, Switzerland, Trump on Thursday claimed that non-US NATO troops stayed “a little off the frontlines” in Afghanistan.
Ninety French soldiers died in the conflict.
“At such a moment, it is symbolically important to be there for their families, for their memory, and to remind everyone of the sacrifice they made on the front line,” Rufo said.
After his comments caused an outcry, Trump appeared to backpedal and heaped praise on the British soldiers who fought in Afghanistan. He had no words for other troops, though.
“I have seen the statements, in particular from veterans’ associations, their outrage, their anger, and their sadness,” Rufo said, adding that trans-Atlantic solidarity should prevail over polemics.
“You know, there is a brotherhood of arms between Americans, Britons, and French soldiers when we go into combat.”
