Taliban minister urges leadership to lift Afghan female education ban  

FILE - A classroom that previously was used for girls sits empty in Kabul, Afghanistan, Dec. 22, 2022. Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Abbas Stanikzai called for lifting the education ban on Afghan girls and women. (Screengrab courtesy Tolo news)

A senior Taliban leader has publicly criticized his government’s policy of prohibiting female education in Afghanistan, calling it a “personal choice” rather than an interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia. The rare public rebuke from Sher Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban deputy foreign minister, comes amid persistent international calls for Afghanistan’s rulers to permit girls’ education in secondary schools and beyond, as well as to remove restrictions on women’s access to public life at large.