A senior Taliban official has urged the group’s leader to lift educational bans imposed on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for it, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.
Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made these remarks in a speech on Saturday (January 18, 2025) in the southeastern province of Khost.
He told an audience at a ceremony at a religious school that there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn’t be any at all.” The government has prohibited women from accessing education after the sixth grade. Last September, there were reports that authorities had also suspended medical training and courses for women.
In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have yet to confirm the ban on medical training.
Exclusion of Afghan girls from secondary schools “shameful”: UN
“We again ask the leaders to open the doors of education,” said Stanikzai in a video shared on his official account on the social platform all your rights. This is not in Islamic law, but in our personal choice or nature.” Stanikzai was once the head of the Taliban team in talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
This is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve an education. He made similar comments in September 2022, a year and months after schools closed for girls and before the introduction of a university ban.
But the latest comments marked his first call for a change in policy and a direct appeal to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada. Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Disaster Group’s South Asia program, said Stanikzai had periodically made statements calling girls’ education a right of all Afghan women.
Afghan girls face uncertain future after a year out of school
“However, this latest statement appears to go further in that it is publicly calling for a policy change and questioning the legitimacy of the current approach,” Bahiss said.
In Pakistan’s capital Islamabad earlier this month, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban on women’s and girls’ education.
She spoke at a conference organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Muslim World League. The United Nations has said recognition is almost impossible as long as bans on female education and employment remain in place and women cannot go out in public without a male guardian.
No country recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, but countries like Russia have been building ties with them. India has also been developing relations with Afghan authorities.
Earlier this month in Dubai, a meeting between India’s top diplomat Vikram Mistri and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi showed their deepening cooperation.
Published – January 19, 2025 02:03 pm IST
