The United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Thomas West and the country’s special envoy for Afghan women and human rights, Rina Amiri, have discussed the situation of girl’s education in Afghanistan in a meeting with the Pakistani Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai on Friday.
“As we’ve said time and again, educating girls is the best thing a country can do to improve lives.” West wrote in a tweet on Saturday.
Women and girls are now effectively denied their basic rights to education in all over Afghanistan under the Taliban which recaptured the country in August 2021.
In March 2022, the group barred girls from secondary education. In December, it banned tertiary education for women and girls, and also prohibited women from working for NGOs.
The Taliban’s restriction of women’s rights to education and work were followed by worldwide condemnations and repeated calls to be reversed but the group responded with imposing more restrictions on women.
With the new academic year set to start in two days across Afghanistan, there is no development in reversing the Taliban’s bans on education for women and girls.
Earlier this month universities in the capital Kabul and some other provinces were only re-opened to male students which once again provoked strong reactions by girl students and women’s rights activist.
Earlier this month, in an open letter addressed to male students and lecturers of universities across Afghanistan, a group of female university students, called on boys to boycott university classes and stand for the rights of women.
