The United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres has said, “nothing can justify keeping girls out of the classroom” adding that investing in their education and hum rights was investing in the common future for the world.
“Worldwide, 129 million girls are out of school,” the UN chief added in a tweet late on Saturday.
His remarks come as girls and women in Afghanistan are effectively banned from pursuing secondary and tertiary education as a matter of policy by the Taliban.
According to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), 2.5 million school-aged girls and young women in Afghanistan, are currently out of school.
“Nearly 30% of girls in Afghanistan have never entered primary education,” the UNESCO reported in January.
In August 2021, the Taliban recaptured Afghanistan. In March 2022, the group banned girls above the 6th grade from schooling and in December of the same year it barred women from university education across the country.
The group has also banned women from working for NGOs and recently from work with the United Nations and its associated agencies in Afghanistan – confining millions of girls and women to their home spaces just as the group did during its first rule from 1996 to 2001.
Although the international community, human rights organizations, and the Islamic world have repeatedly called on the Taliban to lift these restrictions on women, the group’s leadership have only responded with imposing more restrictions so far