The Taliban has ordered secondary girls schools in Afghanistan to shut on Wednesday just hours after they reopened, an official confirmed, sparking confusion over the policy reversal.
“Yes, it’s true,” Taliban spokesman Inamullah Samangani told AFP when asked to confirm reports that girls had been ordered home.
An AFP team was filming at Zarghona High School in the capital Kabul when a teacher entered and ordered everyone to go home.
Crestfallen students, back in class for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August last year, tearfully packed up their belongings and filed out.
The international community has made the right to education for all a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition of the new Taliban regime.
In a message, the UN in Afghanistan deplored the announcement by Taliban that they are further extending their indefinite ban on female students above the 6th grade being permitted to return school.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) in a new report has said that if girls are not allowed to go to school in the new solar year, international donors will reduce their support for education in Afghanistan.
The agency added in a new report that girls and women must have equal access to education without discrimination on the basis of gender, and suggested to international donors that they only fund education in provinces where girls are being educated.
“Donors to Afghanistan, like Afghanistan itself, have signed up to the conventions of the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women, and under that convention it is not going to be possible for donors to fund any part of the education system which is discriminating against girls and women. So donors need to monitor closely and verify that any part of the education sector that they are funding is providing equal access for girls and women versus boys and men. So that could mean, for example, if some provinces don’t have fully functioning secondary schools for girls, donors would not be able to fund those provinces,” said Heather Barr, associate women’s rights director at Human Rights Watch.
