ISLAMABAD (AP) – The United Nations (UN) yesterday called for Afghanistan’s Taleban rulers to re-open schools to girls, calling the anniversary of their exclusion from high school “shameful”.
The UN said it is increasingly concerned that the policy, together with other restrictions on basic freedoms, will contribute to a deepening of the country’s economic crisis in the form of greater insecurity, poverty and isolation.
“This is a tragic, shameful, and entirely avoidable anniversary,” said UN mission in Afghanistan acting head Markus Potzel.
A year after the Taleban took power in Afghanistan, hard-liners appear to hold sway in the Taleban-led government.
Teenage girls are still barred from school and women are required to cover themselves from head to toe in public, with only their eyes showing. The group has failed to deliver on promises to enable girls’ return to the classroom. The ban targets grades 7-12, impacting girls age 12 to 18.
The Taleban re-opened high schools to boys while instructing girls to remain at home. The UN estimates that over a million girls have been barred from attending high school over the past year.
“The ongoing exclusion of girls from high school has no credible justification and has no parallel anywhere in the world. It is profoundly damaging to a generation of girls and to the future of Afghanistan itself,” said Potzel, who is also the UN secretary-general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan.
