Human Rights Watch (HRW), in its report released on Friday highlighted that “one year on, the Taliban still attacking girls’ right to education,” adding that the group’s “misogynistic regime” has made Afghanistan the only country banning girls from secondary school.
The organization expressed concern about the world’s inaction in stopping Taliban’s bans and how the group’s action has negatively affected the future of women and girls in Afghanistan.
The Taliban recaptured Afghanistan in August 2021. In March 2022, the group reopened secondary schools for boys but barred girls above the 6th grade from schooling. In December, it expanded the bans to university education for female students and female aid workers.
“It’s cruel how the Taliban waited until the moment girls joyfully returned to school before ordering them home. Girls went home weeping, but still hoped to go back,” the HRW stated in the report.
According to the HRW, the Taliban’s policies of disregarding women and girls has proved that the group has no interest in Afghanistan’s well-being. “No country can imagine a prosperous future without educated girls and women, and Afghanistan, with the highest level of illiteracy in the world, is facing a dark future.”
The organization urged the Taliban to reverse its “misogynistic” order immediately, reopen schools and universities for women and girls, and stop attacking the future of women and girls and that of the country.
It also called on world leaders to take immediate, pragmatic, and meaningful measures against the Taliban’s policies.
