RASC News Agency: Samia Farooqi, an engineering student, had to flee Afghanistan to continue her studies two years ago when the Taliban group took over Afghanistan and deprived more than 1.1 million women and girls from school and university.
She, who is 21 years old and now lives in the United States of America, is the face of the campaign launched by the United Nations Global Education Fund on the second anniversary of the Taliban’s resumption of control over Afghanistan.
This campaign with the slogan “Voice of Afghanistani Girls” is a global call to respect the rights of Afghanistani women for education, and a large number of girls and women have been forced to leave their country to continue their education.
After Farooqi left Afghanistan in 2021 along with nine other girls from the “Afghanistani Dreamers” robotics team, they finished school in Qatar.
Now, thanks to the scholarship provided by Qatar, she is starting her second year of engineering at Sacramento State University in California.
“This campaign [campaign] is to once again draw the world’s attention to Afghanistani girls and the issues related to their education,” Samia Farooqi said in a written interview with AFP.
She added: “Afghaisnistan seems to have been forgotten.”
Meanwhile, the UN report last month stated that the situation of women and girls in Afghanistan is the worst in the world.
The report said that the policies of the Taliban group can be considered “gender apartheid“.
For Farooqi, such a situation cannot be accepted, she told AFP: “We must ensure that [women and girls] have access to equal opportunities and education, because education is the key to freedom.”
She said in a statement: “Girls are banned from public spaces such as schools, gyms and recreation centers and there is nothing left for them to do, they have to just sit at home.”
Farooqi said: “For the girls of many families, the only way left is marriage; without their consent.” she added that many of her classmates were also forced to marry. “Depression is widespread,” she said in the statement. “The suicide rate of girls has increased a lot in the last two years and this is sad.”
The “Education Can’t Wait” campaign aims to raise global awareness of the issue through social media next month, giving the voices of Afghanistani girls and women a voice when world leaders gather for the United Nations General Assembly on September 18-19.
