38,000 Afghan Girls Do Not Have Access To Higher Education This Year

She stressed on the continued support for women's efforts to secure their rights.

She said, "Your struggle will not be ignored." On Tuesday, the European Parliament invited a number of Afghan women activists to its meeting.

In this meeting, figures such as Shukria Barakzai, Parwana Ebrahimkhel Nejrabi, Parastoo Yaari, Farahleqa Onchizadeh, Farzana Kouchi, and Tahmina Salek were present.

During more than three years of their rule, the Taliban has imposed extensive restrictions on Afghan women and girls in the private and public spheres.

The Taliban have banned girls above the sixth grade from going to school and female students from attending university.

In the latest move, the group has signed a law known as "Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice", the provisions of which target women more than before.

The Taliban's new law prohibits women from talking to stranger men and calls their voices "awrah" even when reciting the Quran.

The organisation called on the world to exert more pressure on the Taliban to lift the ban on girls' education.

On September 17, 2021, more than a month after the group came to power, the Taliban's Ministry of Education announced in a statement the reopening of schools in Afghanistan, but called only male students and male teachers to schools.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the spokesman for the Taliban government, announced that the closure of schools above the sixth grade for girls is "temporary" and will be reopened when suitable conditions are provided.

Since then, about 1,096 days have passed and girls above the sixth grade have not gone to school.

In a statement on Tuesday, Human Rights Watch said that the Taliban, like the first term of their rule, when they deprived girls of education for five years, this time are wasting "precious time" of girls in the most critical years of their personal and academic growth, learning, and development.

"Girls who dropped out of school during those years [the first round of Taliban rule] mostly never fully recovered, and girls who dropped out of school today will also face lifelong and intergenerational consequences," the organisation said in a statement.

The human rights organisation also said that despite the ban on girls' education above the sixth grade in Afghanistan, there is still a need for governments and international institutions to take meaningful steps to lift the ban.

Human Rights Watch has called on the Taliban to provide safe and quality education to all girls.
"Donor countries should support communities that seek to protect girls' right to education and fund online and underground education initiatives implemented by women," the organisation's statement said.

During the meeting, they discussed the situation in Afghanistan and international efforts to ensure stability in Afghanistan.

The meeting took place at the UN headquarters in New York, Qatar News Agency reported on Tuesday.
"The meeting discussed the current situation in Afghanistan and international efforts to ensure stability and improve the conditions of the Afghan people," the outlet wrote.

Roza Otunbayeva is scheduled to report on the situation in Afghanistan at a meeting of the UN Security Council on Wednesday morning.
The meeting comes as the Taliban have imposed sweeping restrictions on citizens, especially women and girls.

A new report by the UN Secretary-General shows that the people of Afghanistan, under the rule of the Taliban, face serious challenges, including a weak economy and significant violations of rights and freedoms.

The report shows that the challenges and problems of Afghans have been exacerbated by the Taliban's restrictive policies and behaviour.

The Afghan embassy in Muscat, the capital of Oman, began operating on Sunday under the supervision of the Taliban's Foreign Ministry, he said.

On Tuesday, the Taliban's deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs wrote on his X social media page that the services of the Afghan embassy in Oman have been resumed in cooperation with the host country and the management of the group's diplomats in Muscat.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of Oman has not yet officially commented on the matter.
The Taliban's deputy spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however, called the reopening of the embassy and the resumption of its services a constructive step in strengthening the group's political, economic, and social relations with the Kingdom of Oman.

Earlier, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry announced on August 22 that the United Arab Emirates had accepted the credentials of the group's ambassador. According to the ministry, Badruddin Haqqani, the Taliban's former chargé d'affaires in the UAE, has been introduced as the group's ambassador to the UAE.

While no country in the world has recognized the Taliban so far, some countries in the region have accepted the group's diplomats at the chargé d'affaires level and a small number at the ambassador's level.

The court said that it had sentenced one person to 39 lashes while the other two people were sentenced to 29 and 39 lashes each.

The Taliban's Supreme Court wrote in a statement on Tuesday, that the primary courts of Shirin Tagab and Pashtunkot districts of Faryab province had punished the individuals in the presence of the group's officials and the public.

The court reports the flogging of defendants in different provinces of Afghanistan everyday.
However, human rights organisations have called on the Taliban to stop the cruel and corporal punishment of defendants in public.