UN, EU Jointly Support Afghan Women and Girls: EU Representative
High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell Fontelles said on Tuesday that the EU and the UN will jointly support Afghan women and girls.
Mr. Borrell met with Amina Mohammed UN Deputy Secretary-General on Tuesday in Brussels for an informative discussion after her visit to Afghanistan.
“The European Union and United Nations will jointly continue to stand with the Afghan people, in particular women and girls,” Mr. Borrell said.
Amina Mohammed along with a senior UN delegation visited Afghanistan and met with a number of high-ranking Taliban officials, emphasizing the need for ensuring the rights of Afghan women and girls.
Ms. Mohammad also asked the de facto authorities of Afghanistan to reverse the gender-based restrictions and allow women and girls to attend educational institutions and workplaces.
The UN Deputy Secretary-General Amina Mohammad stated to the media that a timeline should be set and the “Taliban” should be forced to remove restrictions accordingly.
Without a clear timeline, these temporary restrictions could continue up to another 50 years, therefore, a proper timeline is urgently needed to address the issue.
As per the findings of UNESCO, the number of students from 2001-2021 increased ten times, showing that the total number of students increased from one million in 2001, to ten million in 2021 in Afghanistan.
The UNESCO findings also indicate that girls did not attend schools in 2001, however, the number of girls attending schools reached 2.5 million in 2021, and the presence of female university students had reached 20 times in the year before the Taliban seized power and barred girls from participating in secondary and university education.
Furthermore, the literacy rate among Afghan women was as low as 17 percent in 2001. This number jumped to 30 percent in 2021.
This comes as the UN and the Western states repeatedly emphasize that by depriving women and girls of their natural rights to educate and learn, the achievements of the past two decades in the education sector will go in vain.
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