A senior Taliban official has called on the group’s leaders to end a ban on education for women and girls in Afghanistan, saying they have no excuses and in a rare public condemnation of government policies. It was.
Sher Abbas Stanikzai, Political Undersecretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, made the remarks in a speech in the southeastern province of Khost on Saturday.
“Just as there was no reason to justify education in the past, there is no reason to deny education to women and girls,” he told the audience at a religious school ceremony.
The government prohibited women from receiving education beyond the sixth grade. In September last year, there were also reports that authorities had committed the following acts: stopped medical training and courses For women.
In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and medical professionals. Authorities have not yet confirmed the ban on medical training.
“We once again call on leaders to open the doors of education,” Stanikzai said in a video shared by the official account of social platform X. “We are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million, depriving them of educational opportunities.” They have every right. This is not prescribed by Islamic law, but is a matter of our personal choices and dispositions. ”
Stanikzai was once taliban team leader Amid negotiations leading to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
It’s not the first time he It states that women and girls have the right to education. He made similar comments in September 2022, a year after the girls’ school was closed for several months. Introducing a ban on admission to universities.
But recent comments mark the first time he has called for policy changes and direct appeals to Taliban leaders. Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Ibraheem Bahis, an analyst with Crisis Group’s South Asia Program, said Stanikzai regularly issues statements that girls’ education is a right of all Afghan women.
“However, this latest statement appears to go further in the sense that it publicly calls for policy change and questions the legitimacy of the current approach,” Bahis said.
Earlier this month, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate was photographed in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. malala yousafzai He appealed to Islamic leaders to challenge the Taliban on the education of women and girls.
she were talking At a conference organized by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation and the Islamic World League.
Although the United Nations says recognition is nearly impossible, Prohibition on education and employment of women Women will continue to be unable to appear in public without a male guardian.
No country recognizes the Taliban as the legitimate rulers of Afghanistan, but Russia I have built a bond with them.
India is also developing relations with Afghan authorities.
A meeting between India’s top diplomat Vikram Mistri and Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi in Dubai earlier this month signaled deepening cooperation between the two countries.
