KABUL (Pajhwok): The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has dedicated the International Day of Education to Afghan women and girls.
“No country in the world should bar women and girls from receiving an education. Education is a universal human right that must be respected,” UNESCO’s Director-General Audrey Azoulay said.
In a statement on Thursday, the Paris-based UN agency warned that barring girls and young women from classrooms in Afghanistan could wipe out huge gains made in education and create a lost generation.
Azoulay reminded the global fraternity of its responsibility to ensure the rights of Afghan girls and women were restored without delay. The war against women must stop,” she stressed.
The caretaker government in Afghanistan has banned young women from university education and working for local and international NGOs.
Earlier in the week, UNESCO said Afghanistan risked a lost generation as educated women were essential for the country’s development.
Between 2001 and 2018, UNESCO said, Afghanistan had recorded a 10-fold spike in enrollment across all education levels, from roughly one million to 10 million students.
The number of girls in primary school rose from almost zero to 2.5 million. By August 2021, they accounted for four out of 10 primary school students.
Similarly, women’s presence in higher education also saw a nearly 20-fold rise from 5,000 students in 2001 to more than 100,000 two decades later.
Today, 80 per cent of school-aged Afghan girls and women, 2.5 million, are out of school. The ban on university education had affected more than 100,000 women.
UNESCO called for immediate and non-negotiable access to education and a return to school for all girls and young women across Afghanistan.
“Everyone has the right to education. But in Afghanistan, girls and women have been deprived of this fundamental right,” the UN agency deplored.
pr/mud
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