The United States cancelled planned talks with the Taliban after Afghanistan’s rulers made a reversal on girls’ education, shutting girls out of middle and high school hours after doors were opened. The meetings were set to take place on the sidelines of a conference in Doha on Saturday and Sunday, to address important economic challenges in Afghanistan, where millions of people are facing increased famine.
State Department deputy spokeswoman Jalina Porter said, “We have cancelled some of our engagements, including planned meetings in Doha around the Doha Forum, and have made clear that we see this decision as a potential turning point in our engagement.”
Afghanistan’s Present State and Situation
As of August 2021, the Taliban reestablished their rule over Afghanistan following the withdrawal of U.S. troops and their NATO partners. With that, the United States ended their almost 20-year mission in the country which began as a direct result of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on U.S. soil.
More than 22 million people are expected to face life-threatening food insecurity, with 9 million of them to be on the verge of starvation. Millions of Afghans have gone months without receiving a regular paycheck.
With food and fuel prices rising, making life’s end meet has become difficult for Afghans, credit in part to US economic sanctions against the Taliban. The US also froze $9 billion in Afghan currency reserves, effectively cutting the country off from the rest of the world and the global marketplace.
However, in January 2022 the UN and partners launched a more than $5 billion funding appeal for Afghanistan in the hope of shoring up collapsing basic services there, which have left 22 million in need of assistance inside the country, and 5.7 million people requiring help beyond its borders.
Condemnation by the Women Leaders of the World
When the Taliban seized power in August amid a hasty retreat of NATO forces from Afghanistan, women’s rights and girls’ education were major concerns. After months of uncertainty, the Education Ministry stated last week that all pupils, including girls, will be able to attend school starting on the 23rd of March’22.
However, schools were closed abruptly hours after classes began with a new notice posted by the ministry, “We inform all-girls high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next order.”
The announcement disappointed the hopes of aspiring girls who were turned away from schools and crippled their aspirations. This order received condemnation from international powers, who have been lobbying for women’s rights under the Taliban regime.
Women leaders of the world were left appalled and abhorred by the Taliban regime for denouncing the basic rights of education for young girls. Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai predicted that ‘Ban on girls won’t last forever and said,“Women have seen what it means to be educated, what it means to be empowered. This time is going to be much harder for the Taliban to maintain the ban on girls’ education.”
A group of female foreign ministers from 16 countries around the world: Albania, Andorra, Australia, Belgium, Bosnia, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Iceland, Kosovo, Malawi, Mongolia, New Zealand, Sweden, Tonga and Britain, expressed their disappointment in a joint statement that insisted:“As women and as foreign ministers, we are deeply disappointed and concerned that girls in Afghanistan are being denied access to secondary schools this spring.
The decision is particularly disturbing as we repeatedly heard their commitments to open all schools for all children.” They made a collective appeal to the Taliban regime to reverse the recent decision and to grant equal access to girls to all levels of education, in all provinces of the country.
As dozens of teachers, students and women’s rights activists march on the road in the Afghan capital for their rights for the Taliban’s failing the girl’s expectations. Afghanistan’s state of the economy has deteriorated to be on verge of hunger and starvation with only a fissure of hope.
Edited by Subbuthai Padma
Published by Iram Rizvi
