Afghan girls accuse UN envoy of normalising Taliban training ban in open letter

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Over 70 Afghan girls have written an open letter to United Nations chief Antonio Guterres towards the UN’s particular envoy in Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva’s newest remarks on training of Afghan women in Islamic madrassas.

Ms Otunbayeva, head of the UN’s help mission in Afghanistan, instructed the UN Safety Council final month that there’s “increasingly more anecdotal proof that women might examine on the Islamic colleges generally known as madrassas” run by the Taliban, with none proof of progressive training in these centres.

However Ms Otunbayeva stated it wasn’t clear what constituted a madrassa, if there was a standardised curriculum that allowed trendy training topics, and what number of women had been in a position to examine within the colleges.

“Such statements are totally irresponsible and perceived as normalising the training ban for ladies in Afghanistan beneath the Taliban. For anybody accustomed to the Afghan context, madrassa and formal faculty programs can’t be appropriate for a lot of causes,” the letter to Mr Guterres, seen by The Unbiased, learn. Madrassas are Islamic colleges that additionally typically present free non secular training, shelter and meals to college students.

The coalition of Afghan girls, activists, former judges, diplomats, and human rights organisations, have rejected the UN envoy’s place and statements on the Safety Council, stating that the highest chief was making an attempt to normalise the Taliban’s training ban towards girls and women, amongst different human rights violations.

“Because the Taliban returned in August 2021, they’ve shaped a whole lot of recent non secular madrassas throughout Afghanistan, not only for school-age girls and boys however grownup women and men, the place there’s a real worry of mass radicalisation of youth,” the letter added.

“The Taliban are an ideological militant group that makes use of faith and other people’s non secular beliefs for his or her political and navy functions,” the letter learn.

Afghan youngsters from a madrassa or an Islamic faculty maintain Taliban’s flag in Fayzabad district of Badakhshan province

(AFP by way of Getty)

It identified that the formal training curriculum in Afghanistan was “per each non secular training in addition to trendy topics together with science, arithmetic, literature, international languages, historical past, and geography”. Whereas within the Taliban’s madrassas the place college students are taught predominantly non secular research.

“Moreover, there are a number of studies and analysis that present that individuals who attend Taliban-controlled madrassas are radicalised and even studying [about] militancy and insurgency,” the open letter to the UN chief stated.

“Fashionable training is vital for the development of a rustic, significantly for girls’s energetic participation in social, political financial sphere,” the letter stated, including that any absence of a proper training system and deprivation of women from advancing could have a critical influence on Afghanistan.

The ladies, representing thousands and thousands of Afghan women and girls beneath the Taliban regime, have requested the UN secretary common to induce the Taliban to reverse insurance policies answerable for the deteriorating human rights scenario, significantly for girls and women, and maintain them accountable for systematic violations.

One of many 5 calls for to the secretary common additionally asks the UN to push the Taliban to “cease spreading extremist ideologies together with within the training system and madrassas”, stating that the implications of such insurance policies are devastating for Afghanistan and past.

The UN has refused to recognise the Taliban, an Islamist militant group, because the respectable authorities of Afghanistan since its fighters seized energy by pressure in August 2021.

The Taliban took management of Kabul by ousting a democratically elected authorities after the withdrawal of Western allied forces. Since taking energy, the Taliban regime has banned girls from colleges, workplaces and public leisure amenities, frightening worldwide condemnation. Madrassas are one of many few choices for ladies after sixth grade to obtain any form of training.

Afghanistan beneath the Taliban is the one nation on earth that has stopped women and girls from attending secondary faculty and universities, a ban that has been in place for greater than two years and is predicted to have wide-reaching implications for the nation’s society and financial system if it persists.

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