‘Shameful’: UN denounces exclusion of Afghan girls from school

UN more and more involved the ‘tragic’ coverage and different restrictions on fundamental freedoms will contribute to a deepening of the financial disaster.

Afghan women and girls take part in a protest in Kabul.
Afghan girls and ladies participate in a protest in entrance of the schooling ministry in Kabul [File: Ahmad Sahel Arman/AFP]

The United Nations has known as for Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to reopen colleges to ladies in courses seven to 12, calling the anniversary of their exclusion from highschool “shameful”.

The UN mentioned on Sunday it's more and more involved that the coverage, along with different restrictions on fundamental freedoms, will contribute to a deepening of the nation’s financial disaster within the type of larger insecurity, poverty and isolation.

“It is a tragic, shameful, and completely avoidable anniversary,” mentioned Markus Potzel, appearing head of the UN mission in Afghanistan.

A yr after the Taliban took energy in Afghanistan, teenage ladies are nonetheless barred from college and girls are required to cowl themselves from head to toe in public.

“A yr of misplaced information and alternative that they may by no means get again,” UN chief Antonio Guterres tweeted on Sunday. “Women belong in class. The Taliban should allow them to again in.”

The Taliban has didn't ship on varied guarantees to allow ladies’ return to the classroom.

The ban targets feminine college students of courses seven to 12, primarily affecting ladies aged 12 to 18. The Taliban reopened excessive colleges to boys whereas instructing ladies to stay at dwelling.

The UN estimates a couple of million ladies have been barred from attending highschool over the previous yr.

“The continuing exclusion of ladies from highschool has no credible justification and has no parallel anyplace on the earth. It's profoundly damaging to a technology of ladies and to the way forward for Afghanistan itself,” mentioned Potzel.

‘Denied human rights’

To mark the Sunday anniversary, 50 ladies despatched a letter titled A Yr of Darkness: A Letter from Afghan ladies to heads of Muslim international locations and different world leaders. The ladies hail from the capital, Kabul, japanese Nangarhar province, and northern Parwan province.

“The previous yr, we've got been denied human rights, akin to the proper to realize an schooling, the privilege to work, the freedom to stay with dignity, freedom, mobility and speech, and the proper to find out and determine for ourselves,” Azadi, an 18-year-old Eleventh-grade scholar from Kabul, mentioned within the letter.

The ladies named within the letter gave solely their first names. The UN mentioned denying schooling violates probably the most basic rights of women and girls. The world physique mentioned it will increase the chance of marginalisation, violence, exploitation and abuse in opposition to ladies and is a part of a broader vary of discriminatory insurance policies and practices focusing on girls and ladies because the de facto authorities assumed energy in the summertime of 2021.

The UN once more known as upon the Taliban to reverse the slew of measures it has launched limiting Afghan girls and ladies’ enjoyment of their fundamental rights and freedoms.

In line with UNICEF, three million ladies are unable to finish their secondary college schooling due to restrictions imposed by the Taliban.

Since returning to energy, the Taliban has struggled to manipulate because it stays diplomatically remoted. Freezing of Afghan funds price billions of dollars by the West and the nation’s exclusion from international monetary establishments have largely contributed to the close to collapse of the nation’s aid-dependent economic system.

Greater than half of Afghanistan’s 39 million folks want humanitarian assist and 6 million are vulnerable to famine, in accordance with the UN.

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