Ashoqullah, who is a schoolteacher, said that girls have the right to education and schools must be reopened immediately….reports Asian Lite News
Girls and teachers have urged the Taliban to reopen schools for girls and young women.
Schools for girls have been closed for about two months after the Taliban takeover. Only three provinces in Afghanistan– Balkh, Kunduz and Sar-i- Pul– have reopened schools for girls, TOLOnews reported.
Madina, a 12th-grade student of a school in Kabul wished for schools to reopen in the capital city and other provinces too.
“I am optimistic about reopening schools in some provinces. We wish that schools will be opened in Kabul and other provinces. As the winter is coming and the weather is getting cold and facilities are very limited in public schools, so then we can’t study,” she said.
Ashoqullah, who is a schoolteacher, said that girls have the right to education and schools must be reopened immediately.
“Girls also have the right to education and the schools must be immediately opened. A big section of society, which is women, should not be affected,” Ashoqullah said, TOLOnews reported.
Earlier on Monday, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the Taliban has broken all the promises made to Afghan women and girls.
“I am alarmed to see promises made to Afghan women and girls by the Taliban being broken,” Guterres said.
He further appealed to the Taliban to keep their promises under the international human rights law.
“I strongly appeal to the Taliban to keep their promises to women and girls and their obligations under international human rights law.”
Meanwhile, referring to matters such as women’s rights, the Taliban said that the world should not make demands by putting pressure, but should seek cooperation.
The Taliban appointed Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi made these remarks at an event organised by the Center for Conflict and Humanitarian Studies at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Tolo News reported.
“You should not seek your demands through putting pressure on us, ask us through cooperation,” Muttaqi said adding that the previous government had strong international support but was unable to bring reforms in 20 years.
“Now you are asking for all the reforms in two months,” he added.
During the event, Muttaqi also said that “the full implementation of the Doha agreement signed between the US and Afghanistan can address any problem between the two countries.”
He also added that when the Taliban took over Kabul, schools were already closed due to COVID-19 but now they are reopening the schools across the country.
“Schools for boys and girls were closed before us because of COVID. When Kabul fell to our hands, all schools were closed already. Schools in provinces were closed already. We have started reopening the schools,” Tolo News quoted Muttaqi as saying.
The Taliban after the siege of Afghanistan have been trying to deliver a moderate image to the world in an attempt to gain international confidence but experts say that the scenes at the Kabul airport were proof that the terrorist group has returned with the same radical and violence mindset.
Earlier, Sajjan Gohel, a security and terrorism analyst said that women are scared out of their minds, according to Four Nine, a prominent women’s magazine in the West.
“From the Afghan women I’ve spoken to, it’s incredibly traumatic. You’re looking at an entire generation who only read about the Taliban in books. Now, they’re having to live side-by-side with what is effectively a misogynistic cult,” Gohel said.
He also said that he believes we are going to see a return “to some degree of what we saw in the 1990s”.
According to the international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation: “Women’s lives [from 1996 to 2001] were very bleak and severely repressed by the Taliban. You’re looking at an era where every aspect of a woman’s life was controlled, contained, and confined,” reported Four Nine.
The Taliban has proposed a ban on coeducation. Their officials in Herat province had last week ordered that girls will no longer be allowed to sit in the same classes as boys in universities, Khaama Press report. (ANI)
