RASC News Agency: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has warned that Taliban-imposed restrictions on women and girls in Afghanistan have already impacted approximately 1.5 million female students. In a statement marking International Women’s Day, the organization cautioned that if these restrictions persist until 2030, the number of girls deprived of education could exceed 4 million. UNESCO has identified Afghanistan as the only country in the world where girls are systematically denied access to education. This alarming regression, the organization emphasized, is unfolding despite decades of progress in expanding educational opportunities for Afghanistani women progress that is now being systematically dismantled under Taliban rule.
Taliban officials have persistently framed the prohibition on girls’ education as a domestic issue, asserting that their policies are rooted in Islamic law. Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, reiterated this stance in a statement issued on March 8, claiming that women’s rights within an “Islamic and Afghanistani society” fundamentally differ from those in Western nations. Mujahid emphasized that these distinctions must be considered in any assessment of the situation. However, the Taliban’s notion of an “Islamic and Afghanistani society” is widely understood to reflect the tribal customs of Pashtun communities in southern Afghanistan rather than any universally recognized Islamic principles. The version of Islam they impose bears little resemblance to the faith practiced elsewhere, aligning instead with rigid and archaic tribal codes that stand in stark contrast to authentic Islamic teachings.
Under the Pashtun tribal framework, which the Taliban seeks to institutionalize, women are systematically stripped of fundamental rights both religious and human. The Taliban’s invocation of “Afghanistani society” as a justification for their policies is, in reality, an endorsement of a narrow and exclusionary Pashtun tribal ideology, wherein women’s roles are rigidly confined, and their access to education and autonomy is outright denied.
