By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Malala Yousafzai, the 27-year-old activist who survived a gunshot, has urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban government in Afghanistan and its repressive policies against girls and women.
“Simply put, the Taliban in Afghanistan do not see women as human beings,” she said at an international summit hosted by Pakistan on girls’ education in Islamic countries.
Malala was evacuated from Pakistan at the age of 15 after being shot in the head by a Pakistani Taliban gunman who targeted her for advocating for girls’ education.
Ms. Yousafzai told Muslim leaders there was “nothing Islamic” about the Taliban’s policies, which include preventing girls and women from accessing education and work.
Addressing the conference in Islamabad on Sunday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner said she was “overwhelmed and happy” to be back in her home country.
She has returned to Pakistan only a handful of times since the 2012 attack, making her first return in 2018.
On Sunday, she said the Taliban government had created “a system of gender apartheid.”
The Taliban were “punishing women and girls who dare to break their obscure laws by beating them up, detaining them, and harming them,” she said.
She added that the government “cloak their crimes in cultural and religious justification” but actually “go against everything our faith stands for.”
The Taliban government has previously stated it respects women’s rights in accordance with its interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.
Taliban leaders were invited to the summit by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Pakistan government, and the Muslim World League but did not attend.
Conference attendees included dozens of ministers and scholars from Muslim-majority countries who advocated for girls’ education.
Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, its government has not been formally recognized by a single foreign government. Western powers have stated their policies restricting women need to change.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are prevented from accessing secondary and higher education.
About one and a half million girls have been deliberately deprived of schooling.
“Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are completely banned from education beyond grade six,” said Ms. Yousafzai on Sunday.
The Taliban has repeatedly promised they would be re-admitted to school once a number of issues were resolved, including ensuring the curriculum was “Islamic.”
In December, women were also banned from training as midwives and nurses, effectively closing off their last route to further education in the country.
Ms. Yousafzai said girls’ education was at risk in multiple countries. She said in Gaza, Israel had “decimated the entire education system.”
She urged those present to “call out the worst violations” of girls’ right to education and pointed out that crises in countries including Afghanistan, Yemen, and Sudan meant “the entire future of girls is stolen.”
