Girls excluded from returning to secondary school in Afghanistan

Girls were excluded from returning to secondary school in Afghanistan on Saturday, after the country's new Taliban rulers ordered only boys and male teachers back to the classroom.

The hard-line Islamist group ousted the US-backed government last month, promising a softer brand of rule than their repressive reign in the 1990s, when women were mostly banned from education and work. But the diktat from the education ministry was the latest move from the new government to threaten women's rights. "All male teachers and students should attend their educational institutions," a statement said ahead of classes resuming Saturday. The statement, issued late Friday, made no mention of women teachers or girl pupils. Secondary schools, with students typically between the ages of 13 and 18, are often segregated by sex in Afghanistan.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, they have faced repeated closures and have been shut since the Taliban seized power. Since a US-led invasion ousted the Taliban in 2001, significant progress has been made in girls' education, with the number of schools tripling and female literacy nearly doubling to 30 percent - however, the change was largely limited to the cities. The United Nations said it was "deeply worried" for the future of girls' schooling in Afghanistan. "It is critical that all girls, including older girls, are able to resume their education without any further delays. For that, we need female teachers to resume teaching," the UN's children's agency UNICEF said.