ISLAMABAD: Deputy foreign minister of Afghanistan called the ban on girls’ education as unfair to them and called for its end.
A senior Taliban leader Sher Abbas Stanikzai has publicly criticized his government’s policy of prohibiting female education in Afghanistan, calling it a “personal choice” rather than an interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. There was no valid reason to deny education to females.
According to the news report, the current Taliban administration has restricted female education beyond year six. Reports from September indicate that medical training and courses for women have also been halted, though authorities have not officially confirmed this restriction.
The healthcare system in Afghanistan requires female medical professionals to treat women and girls. Stanikzai, speaking in a video posted on his official X account, emphasised that denying rights to half the population contradicts Islamic law and represents personal preferences rather than religious doctrine.
He said, “Today, we are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a total population of 40 million. We have stripped them of all their rights by closing the doors to schools and universities for them, giving them away as compensation in personal disputes, and preventing them from choosing their husbands”.
“Are we truly following Sharia? … The path we are currently following is guided by personal choice, not Sharia,” he said.
Sher Muhammad Abbas raised the question that, will not all of us stand together on the day of judgment? Where we all will be helpless, we have deprived the girls of all their rights, they have no inheritance rights and they have no rights regarding their husbands, this is also a sacrifice on forced marriages.
In a speech earlier this month, Stanakzai called Trump, who returns to the US presidency today, a “decisive” and “courageous” American leader who, under the new Trump administration, He predicted a change in Washington’s policies regarding Afghanistan.
