Malala Yousafzai urges Taliban to allow girls to return to school

The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has urged the Taliban to let girls return to school. The Pakistani activist was one shot by the Pakistani Taliban when she was a schoolgirl and now functions as an activist for female education. She told BBC World News that the “current temporary ban might last for years”.

She said, “It happened a month ago they announced explicitly that boys can go to their schools. So why can’t they do the same for girls?”

It has been a month since the Taliban ordered the return of boys to secondary school, barring girls from doing so. 

Also Read | Malala Yousafzai to produce women-centric dramas, documentaries for Apple TV

“To the Taliban authorities, you assured the world that you would respect the rights of girls and women — but you are denying millions their right to learn. Reverse the de facto ban on girls’ education and re-open girls’ secondary schools immediately,”Yousafzai, along with other Afghan women’s rights activists said in an open letter released on Sunday.

Yousafzai insisted that muslim leaders all across the world urge to the Taliban that “religion does not justify preventing girls from going to school”.

“Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that forbids girls’ education,” said the writers. 

They requested the G20 world leaders to help urgently with funding for an education plan for Afghan children.

The letter was accompanied by a petition which had nearly 640,000 signatures.

“From my understanding and information, in a very short time all the universities and schools will be reopened and all the girls and women will return to school and their teaching jobs,” a spokesperson for Afghanistan’s Ministry of Interior Affairs told Al Jazeera. 

The Taliban had said to the international community that it was keeping older girls from joining secondary school until a “safe learning environment” could be established.