Unlawful exclusion of girls, women in Afghanistan marks 'global education nadir': UN experts

By Peter Kenny

GENEVA (AA) - A group of UN experts on Monday declared that the refusal of education to girls and young women in Afghanistan “marks a global nadir … impacting an entire gender, a generation, and the country’s future.”

“On 22 March 2023, schools should be reopening to girls across Afghanistan. Instead, it appears that for the second successive school year, teenage girls will be banned from resuming their studies – making Afghanistan the only country in the world that forbids girls and young women from attending secondary school and places of higher education,” read a UN statement.

The Taliban denied women and girls their right to education during their initial rule between 1996 and 2001, and have done the same after seizing power for a second time in 2021, the experts said.

Education is a crucial enabling right for realizing other human rights, including the right to work, an adequate standard of living, health, participation in society and communities, equality before the law, and fundamental freedoms, read the statement.

The experts include Richard Bennett, special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan; Farida Shaheed, special rapporteur on the right to education; and Fionnuala Ni Aolain, special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism.

“Denying this right to half the population effectively denies women and girls most other human rights,” the experts asserted.

They said the Taliban have no justification for the decision “on any grounds, including religion or tradition.”

“Being a state party to United Nations human rights treaties … Afghanistan is obliged to respect, protect and fulfil the right to education without discrimination on the basis of gender or any other ground, irrespective of the authority in power,” the experts said.

The treaties include the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, and the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights.

Both times, the Taliban introduced bans on girls’ education as temporary measures, the statement added.

However, during the first period, the ban was not lifted, and unless the Taliban fulfills its promises to reopen secondary schools and universities immediately, it shows they have no intention of doing so, said the experts.

“If the ban on education continues, life outcomes for girls, but also all children, will continue on a negative trajectory, and recovery will take decades,” the experts warned.

They also said that child marriage and child labor rates have increased since the ban was imposed, along with reports of children being medicated to overcome hunger and even dying from malnutrition.​​​​​​​