The United Nations Secretary General, António Guterres, took advantage of Tuesday’s celebration of International Education Day to call again on the Taliban to revoke the «scandalous» ban they impose on women and girls in Afghanistan who are barred from entering schools and universities.
«Now is the time to end all discriminatory laws and practices that hinder access to education. I call on the Taliban to repeal the outrageous and counterproductive ban on access to secondary and higher education for girls and women in Afghanistan,» called on Guterres.
For her part, UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay sent her support to the women and girls of Afghanistan who are forbidden to «learn, study and teach» and dedicated this fifth International Education Day to them.
«UNESCO condemns this profound attack on human dignity and on the fundamental right to education,» said Azoulay, who insisted that «no country in the world should prevent women and girls from receiving an education,» as it is «a universal human right that must be respected.
«The international community has a responsibility to ensure that the rights of Afghan girls and women are restored without delay. The war against women must end,» Azoulay said.
As denounced by UNESCO, 80 percent of Afghan girls and young women of school age – some 2.5 million – are currently out of school due to decisions imposed by the Taliban government, who have controlled the country since the takeover of Kabul in August 2021.
Since then, the few, albeit important, advances that women had achieved in the past two decades in Afghanistan have been blocked by the fundamentalists, who recently also banned women from working in humanitarian organizations, causing many of these agencies to halt their operations, at a time when the country is suffering one of its worst economic and food crises.
Source: (EUROPA PRESS)
