Senior Taliban person urges group's leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women, girls

Senior Taliban official calls for end to education bans on Afghan women and girls, challenging government policy publicly.

A senior Taliban person has urged the group's leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them, in a rare public rebuke of government policy.

Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the Foreign Ministry, made the remarks in a speech on Saturday (January 18, 2025) in southeastern Khost province.

He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there was no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn't be one at all.” The government has barred females from education after sixth grade. Last September, there were reports authorities had also stopped medical training and courses for women.

In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have yet to confirm the medical training ban.

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“We call on the leadership again to open the doors of education," said Mr. Stanikzai in a video shared by his official account on the social platform X. "We are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a population of 40 million, depriving them of all their rights. This is not in Islamic law, but our personal choice or nature.” Mr. Stanikzai was once the head of the Taliban team in talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

It is not the first time he has said that women and girls deserve to have an education. He made similar remarks in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months and before the introduction of a university ban.