Malala Yousafzai has urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban government in Afghanistan and its repressive policies for girls and women.
“Simply put, the Taliban in Afghanistan do not see women as human beings,” she told an international summit hosted by Pakistan on girls education in Islamic countries.
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.
The 27-year-old was evacuated from Pakistan at 15 after being shot in the head by a Pakistan Taliban gunman who targeted her for speaking out about girls’ education.
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.
Muslim leaders have been called upon by Malala Yousafzai to oppose the Taliban regime in Afghanistan and its oppressive practices against women and girls.
She stated at an international conference on girls’ education in Islamic nations, which was hosted by Pakistan, that “the Taliban in Afghanistan simply do not see women as human beings.”.
There is “nothing Islamic” about the Taliban’s policies, which include barring women and girls from obtaining employment and education, Ms. Yousafzai informed Muslim leaders.
At the age of 15, the 27-year-old was evacuated from Pakistan after being shot in the head by a Pakistan Taliban shooter who had targeted her for advocating for girls’ education.
Malala: I had no idea that women’s rights would be so readily taken away.
A teenage refugee reminds Generation Z of Afghan girls who were silenced, saying, “Don’t forget us.”.
Speaking to the gathering in Islamabad on Sunday, the Nobel Peace Prize winner expressed her happiness and amazement at returning to her homeland. After her initial trip back to Pakistan in 2018, she has only made a few more since the 2012 attack.
She claimed that the Taliban government had once more established “a system of gender apartheid” on Sunday.
She claimed that the Taliban were “attacking, imprisoning, and injuring women and girls who dare to violate their obscure laws.”.
The government “goes against everything our faith stands for” while “cloaking their crimes in cultural and religious justification,” she continued.
When the BBC asked the Taliban government to comment on the advocate’s comments, they refused. According to how they understand Afghan culture and Islamic law, they have previously stated that they respect women’s rights.
Despite being invited to the summit organized by the Muslim World League, the Pakistani government, and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), the Taliban government leaders chose not to attend.
Several hundred ministers and academics from Muslim-majority nations who supported girls’ education attended the conference.
No foreign government has formally recognized the Afghan government since the Taliban retook power in 2021. Western nations have stated that their laws limiting women must be changed.
One and a half million women and girls have been purposefully denied the opportunity to receive secondary and higher education, making Afghanistan the only nation in the world to do so.
During Sunday’s event, Ms. Yousafzai declared, “Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are completely banned from education beyond grade six.”.
The Taliban has stated time and time again that they would be allowed to return to school after a number of problems were fixed, including making sure the curriculum was “Islamic.”. This hasn’t happened yet.
In December, the country essentially closed off women’s last avenue for higher education by prohibiting them from pursuing training as nurses and midwives.
Ms. Yousafzai claimed that several nations were endangering the education of girls. She claimed that Israel had “decimated the entire education system” in Gaza.
She called on those in attendance to “call out the worst violations” of girls’ right to education, pointing out that “the entire future of girls is stolen” due to crises in nations like Yemen, Afghanistan, and Sudan.