Pakistan's Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai has called on the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan to immediately reopen secondary schools for girls. She put forward this demand in an open letter addressed to the new rulers of the war-torn nation.
"To the Taliban authorities, reverse the de facto ban on girls' education and reopen girls' secondary schools immediately," Yousafzai and other Afghan women rights activists wrote in the open letter.
Malala was shot in the head by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in her hometown of Swat Valley in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2012 for being a promoter and supporter of female education.
Her open letter comes a month after the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Since then, the Taliban leaders have maintained that they will be allowing girl education in the country. However, the Taliban has allowed only boys' education institutions to open and has ignored reopening of girls' schools.
Even though Yousafzai's demand has a global recognition and value, it is very likely that the Taliban may simply ignore it. The Taliban had also repeatedly threatened Yousafzai and her family — they vowed to kill her as she pushed females to go out of their homes for education, which they claimed was against the teachings of Islam.<
The Taliban-led Afghan government seeks global recognition in order to restart financial aid to cater to its worsening financial and economic situation. However, the global community has maintained that no recognition can be provided until the Taliban-led government provides free and open access to education to all and civil rights to women in Afghanistan.
