TALIBAN OFFICIAL CALLS FOR REOPENING GIRLS’ SCHOOLS

Wed 28 September 2022:

There is no justification in Islam for the ban on girls attending schools past the sixth year, according to a senior member of Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government.

During a Taliban gathering in Kabul on Tuesday, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s deputy minister of foreign affairs, made the appeal.

Since regaining control, the Taliban has closed secondary schools for girls across the nation, mandated that women cover their faces in public and at work, and prohibited them from traveling long distances alone without a close male relative.

The Taliban have said they are working on a plan to open secondary schools for girls but have not given a timeframe.

The United Nations has called the ban “shameful” and the international community has been wary of officially recognising the Taliban, fearing a return to the same harsh rule the Taliban imposed when they were last in power in the late 1990s.

“It is very important that education must be provided to all, without any discrimination,” Stanikzai said. “Women must get an education, there is no Islamic prohibition for girls’ education.”

“Let’s not provide opportunities for others to create a gap between the government and people,” he added. “If there are technical issues, that needs to be resolved, and schools for girls must be opened.”

Stanikzai once served as the leader of the Taliban delegation during the negotiations that resulted in the 2020 Qatar agreement between the Taliban and the US, which called for the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

His remarks followed the Taliban appointment of a new education minister, days after the UN called on them to reopen schools for girls.

The ban primarily affects female students in the age range of 12 to 18 who are enrolled in grades 7 through 12.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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