The United Nations on Sunday urged the Taliban to reopen girls’ secondary schools across Afghanistan, condemning the ban that began exactly a year ago as “tragic and shameful.”
Weeks after the Taliban seized power in August last year, Islamist hardliners reopened high schools for boys on September 18, 2021, but barred high school girls from attending classes.
Months later, on March 23, the Ministry of Education opened secondary schools for girls, but within hours Taliban leaders ordered classes closed again.
Since then, more than a million adolescent girls have been deprived of an education across the country, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said.
“This is a tragic, shameful and totally avoidable anniversary,” UNAMA Acting Director Markus Potzel said in a statement.
“It is deeply damaging to a generation of girls and to the very future of Afghanistan,” he said, adding that the ban was unparalleled in the world.
UN chief Antonio Guterres urged the Taliban to reverse the ban.
“A year of lost knowledge and opportunities that will never be regained,” Guterres said on Twitter.
“Girls belong in school. The Taliban must let them back in.”
Several Taliban officials say the ban is only temporary, but they have also offered a litany of excuses for the closures, from lack of funds to the time needed to reshape the curriculum along Islamic lines.
Earlier this month, local media quoted the education minister as saying it was a cultural problem as many people in rural areas did not want their daughters to go to school.
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