As human rights violations across the war-torn country continue under the Taliban regime, residents of Wardak province in Afghanistan called on the organisation to reopen schools for girls above grade six.
As women and girls in Afghanistan are facing a human rights crisis, a teacher in the central province of Wardak, Shukria Husseini, launched a campaign to encourage girls to get an education in Afghanistan. I was the first woman to encourage girls to get an education. “Now I am very sad that they can’t study,” she said as she called out to the Taliban to reopen the schools for girls in grades 7-12 as soon as possible.
“As the girls above grade six are not allowed to go to the schools, the families also prevent their daughters below grade six from going to school.”They say when the girls above grade six can’t be educated, the girls below grade six can also not be educated,” Husseini added.
Several human rights and education activists urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country, as the Taliban’s brutal regime in Afghanistan will soon complete a year in August.
World leaders, regional allies, and international organisations were urged in the letter to take serious actions to fulfil their commitments in order to promote and protect Afghan girls’ rights, especially the right to education, which was snatched away from them after the Taliban-led Afghan government banned education for girls in classes 6 and above. The Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women and girls’ rights to freedom of expression, association, assembly, and movement.
The Taliban’s decision to ban female students above grade six from school has drawn widespread criticism at the national and international levels.