UNICEF report on girls denied education and women’s rights in Afghanistan

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.unicef.org/press-releases/restrictions-girls-education-and-womens-employment-afghanistan-could-lead-loss-over

A million girls denied education past primary school age.

The world's largest women's prison.

An awful report. I know there are some initiatives trying to help girls and women but it feels very hopeless in terms of knowing what we can do.

Used to be that the remaining female doctors would have special public access-style programs where they could address health issues, mostly related to babies or prenatal care (of course). But that isn't allowed anymore, either.

Thanks for linking. I don’t really have any words. One thing that struck me is the increase in girls in education under 11 - it shows families are determined to access education for their daughters as much as possible.

Remember when the Taliban absolutely pinky promised they’d, of course, treat women and girls nicely and please keep giving us aid money so we aren’t forced to flood the world with heroin, and no don’t feel the slightest bit guilty about high tailing it out of the country? Despicable men.

And a belief system and culture that relegates women to body parts. Disseminating that culture to their sons. Such that two teen Afghan boys would rape a teenage girl two months after arriving here. Enraging and heartbreaking in equal measure.

There must be a way to manage these absolute psychopaths.

Thanks for the link.

“Denying Afghan girls access to secondary education robs an entire nation of its potential – locking girls, their families, and their communities into poverty, weakening health outcomes, and silencing the economic engine that an educated generation of women could ignite,” said Russell.

Maybe that's the point, they're making sure nobody will challenge the Taliban's rule, an uneducated population are easier to manipulate.

From OHCHR:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2026/03/afghanistan-un-experts-demand-immediate-end-taliban-restrictions-women-un

And a CEDAW review of impacts since the Taliban came into power:

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/research-papers/cedaw-based-legal-review-convention-elimination-all-forms-discrimination

BAN ON WOMEN USING PARKS
AND GYMS (10 NOVEMBER 2022)

II. BAN ON WOMEN’S TRAVEL BEYOND
78 KILOMETRES (31 DECEMBER 2021)

III. HIJAB DIRECTIVE (7 MAY 2022)

IV. LAW ON THE PROMOTION OF VIRTUE
AND THE PREVENTION OF VICE
(21 AUGUST 2024)

V. BAN ON GIRLS’ EDUCATION BEYOND
SIXTH GRADE (23 MARCH 2022)

VI. BAN ON HIGHER EDUCATION FOR
WOMEN AND GIRLS (20 DECEMBER 2022)

VII. BAN ON WOMEN AND GIRLS FROM
MEDICAL INSTITUTES (2 DECEMBER 2024)

VIII. BAN ON WOMEN CIVIL SERVANTS
(24 AUGUST 2021)

IX. BAN ON WOMEN WORKING WITH NATIONAL
AND INTERNATIONAL NON-GOVERNMENTAL
ORGANISATIONS AND THE UNITED NATIONS (24
DECEMBER 2022)

X. BAN OF BEAUTY SALONS (25 JUNE 2023)

XI. STANDARDISATION OF WOMEN CIVIL
SERVANTS’ SALARIES (2 JUNE 2024)

XII. MANUAL ON ADMINISTRATION OF LEGAL
PROCEDURES OF JUDICIAL COURTS (2014)

XIII. SPECIAL DECREE BY THE TALIBAN LEADER ON
WOMEN’S RIGHTS, DECREE NUMBER 395
(3 DECEMBER 2021)

XIV. DECREE…REGARDING PREVENTION OF IMPROPER
CUSTOMS DURING WEDDINGS, CALAMITIES AND
UPON RETURN FROM HAJJ AND UMRAH
(19 MARCH 2025)

XV. GENDER MAINSTREAMING ARCHITECTURE

XVI. PARTICIPATION IN PUBLIC AFFAIRS

The Taliban are pure evil and it's good to see Unicef documenting the oppression of girls and women. But what are they actually DOING!

This link gives some useful information on ways to provide practical support

One thing that surprisingly IMO doesn't get much comment is that many of the top Taliban leaders ensure that their daughters are educated, abroad if need be.

While they deprived millions of Afghan girls from attending schools and universities, their daughters receive education abroad, A report by a non-profit policy research group, published in the Daily Mail, reveals that most Qatar-based Taliban leaders have enrolled their daughters in schools and universities. The report, which includes interviews with 30 individuals, including nine senior Taliban officials, indicates that all Qatar-based Taliban and their families seek modern education for both their sons and daughters. Furthermore, stressed that some Taliban elites, such as Amir Khan Mutaqi, educate their daughters in Pakistan; Mutaqi’s two daughters attend a college in Peshawar.

https://www.jurist.org/commentary/2024/08/hierocracy-of-the-taliban-three-years-of-ban-on-girls-education/

Isn't this proof that they don't really believe their own rules, and that it's actually more about controlling the population? Meanwhile countries like Ireland have no problem hosting the Afghan cricket team in 2026. No pressure for an official boycott - why not?

Thanks to the persistence of sisters such as yourself @ArabellaScott the voices of women and girls are heard from this living hell.
You've been doing this a long time now, bless you. 🌹

It’s really grim for women and girls in Afghanistan.

I am against reimposing the economic and aid sanctions because all they did was sent the masses into starvation and families were selling their underage daughters into sexual slavery (as young as 9) for a bag of flour.

I wish Trump had bombed the Taliban instead of Iran. Iran is awful, but Afghanistan is much worse.

There is nothing we can do about the Taliban, we tried for 15 years and fail completely.

All we can do is keep shining a light on the plight of women and girls in Afghanistan, especially confronting those on the Left, who have selective amnesia when it comes to that country.

Women here did call for a boycott but were ignored.

I don't know what can be done - if nothing else we can try to let women know they are not forgotten.

There just simply must be a way.
It's very much about what's happening at the top I feel and the leaders must be very irregular and difficult to work alongside.
But also there would be lots of fear.
There must be millions of community workers who desperately want to see change. Men as well as women.

We didn’t fail. An entire generation of women went through education, got university degrees and were doctors, judges, mayors, journalists, business owners, civil servants. Yes, we had not eradicated the Taliban in some of the mountainous rural areas but the urban and suburban areas were under coalition control for over twenty years.

Bailing on Afghanistan was the failure. That’s why the Taliban have been hunting down and shooting in the head the female judges, lawyers, and journalists, it’s why they had to issue laws sacking women from the civil service, from medicine, from law, even from learning how to read! And yet our governments don’t even see Afghan women as proper refugees if they manage to escape.

There is plenty resistance to the Taliban.

We can hope that eventually the Afghan people are able to reassert their own rights.

Might have helped if the US hadn't left their arms in the country.

I'm sure there have been many unhelpful external interventions.
But I do feel there needs to be a bit more than hope. I just can't think exactly what.