UNICEF marks ‘sad’ 1000-day milestone of ban on Afghan girls’ education

KABUL (Ariana News): Thursday marks 1,000 days since Afghan girls were banned from attending secondary schools – a ruling imposed by the Islamic Emirate in December 2021.

In a statement marking the day, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said, “Today marks a sad and sobering milestone: 1,000 days since the announcement banning girls in Afghanistan from attending secondary schools. 1,000 days out-of-school amounts to 3 billion learning hours lost. For 1.5 million girls, this systematic exclusion is not only a blatant violation of their right to education, but also results in dwindling opportunities and deteriorating mental health.”

She said the rights of children, especially girls, “cannot be held hostage to politics” and that their lives, futures, hopes and dreams are hanging in the balance.

Russell also stated that the ban impacts the humanitarian crisis and has serious ramifications for Afghanistan’s economy and development trajectory.

She called on the Islamic Emirate to allow all children to resume learning immediately.

The UN has not however been the only organization to repeatedly call on the Islamic Emirate to lift the ban on girls’s education.

Just last month, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) called on the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) to respect Afghan girls and women’s right to education and work.

In a declaration issued after the OIC summit in Gambia, the organization described the right to education and work as the fundamental rights of Afghan girls and women, and called for more communication with the IEA authorities on these issues.

The Islamic Emirate has however stated in the past that the issue of education of girls and women is an internal matter and countries should not interfere in it.