“Sunday marks one year since girls were excluded from secondary schools in Afghanistan. A year of lost knowledge and opportunities they will never find. Girls have their place in school and the Taliban must allow them to return,” UN Secretary-General António Guterres tweeted.
The United Nations confirms that “more than a million girls” between the ages of 12 and 18 were deprived of school during the past year, unlike boys whose schools opened on September 18.
Since their return to power, the Taliban have imposed severe restrictions on girls and women, effectively removing them from public life. Hardline Islamists have closed girls’ high schools in most states and prevented women from holding many government jobs. The hardline Islamist movement ordered women to wear the headscarf outside, preferably the burqa.
