The UN Special Representative for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, has said that the challenge of ensuring access to education for girls and women in the country is not one-dimensional and it requires dialogue at all levels.
Otunbayeva made the remarks at the two-day International Conference on Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities which ended on Sunday in Islamabad.
She also called on countries to offer scholarships and online education programs for Afghan girls.
In a declaration, conference participants said that obstructing girls from education constitutes societal bias against women and called on Muslims across the world to provide equal opportunities for girls’ education.
It added that such actions represent a grave misuse of religious principles to legitimize policies of deprivation and exclusion.
Former Afghan president Hamid Karzai welcomed the declaration and once again called on the Islamic Emirate to reopen schools and universities to girls.
In a post on X, he stressed that the ban on girls’ education in Afghanistan “is against the national interests and the supreme interests of the country and is unjustifiable.”
