AfghanGirlsVoices is a global campaign launched on 15 August, Tuesday to amplify the voices of young Afghan girls who are deprived of their basic right to education. This campaign emerged two years after the de facto Taliban authorities took over the country.
On Tuesday, the United Nations released a statement stating that the campaign was formed in collaboration with Education Cannot Wait (ECW), a UN fund committed to enabling constant learning for children during emergencies and prolonged crises.
Champion Somaya Faruqi, former captain of the Afghan Girls’ Robotic Team, said, “The courage of these girls in Afghanistan gives me the strength to use my own voice as an ECW Global Champion to amplify their voices to the world.”
Faruqi added, “The situation is taking an immense toll on girl’s mental health and rates of suicide for girls has gone up in the last two years. It’s more urgent than ever to act now, and I hope that next year, we celebrate their freedom rather than mark their oppression.”
According to a recent report by United Nations, the condition of women and girls in Afghanistan is the ‘worst globally’. “The systematic curtailment of their human rights, coupled with the profound bias they face under the regime of the de facto Taliban authorities, could potentially qualify as “gender apartheid” and “gender persecution,” the report said.
UN Special Envoy for Global Education and Chair of ECW’s High-Level Steering Group, Gordon Brown said, “The international community must hear this poignant call from the heart from Afghan girls and young women and mobilise in greater numbers and with renewed strength of purpose to condemn the violation of their rights.”
Afghanistan’s women have faced enormous challenges since the Taliban took over in 2021. Girls and women in Afghanistan have no access to employment, education, and public spaces.