Woman students in Afghanistan reiterate call to reopen schools for girls

KABUL: Woman students in Afghanistan have reiterated their request for the Taliban to reopen schools, TOLO News reported. TOLO News is an Afghan news channel broadcasting from Kabul,

This comes 660 days after closure of schools for girls from grade 7 to 12 in Afghanistan. The students said that they are facing an uncertain future. A student, Fareshta, said: "We should together, men and women, improve and take Afghanistan to a position, so that everyone can see us as capable."

Taliban's policies of restricting women from public life, including from education and work, have sparked reactions at international levels. "If this process continues it will cause Afghanistan to go backwards and towards less development and a period like the middle ages will come into effect," said Almatab Rasuli, a women's rights activist, as per TOLO News.

Recently, Nobel Prize-winning education activist Malala Yousafzai condemned the Taliban for reversal of women's rights to education in Afghanistan, Khaama Press reported. The Khaama Press News Agency is an online news service for Afghanistan.

Yousafzai expressed her despair over the Taliban's "complete reversal" of women's rights and education in Afghanistan. She told an audience at the United Nations House in Abuja, Nigeria: "Ten years ago, millions of Afghan girls were going to school."

"One in three young women were enrolled in university. And now? Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban girls and women from seeking education," she said. Yousafzai described how she experienced Taliban brutality when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 for advocating for girls' education, Khaama Press reported.