UNESCO has decided to dedicate the International Day of Education on the 24th of January, 2023 to Afghan girls and women. Director general Audrey Azoulay said that no country in the world should bar women and girls from receiving an education and it is a universal human right that must be respected.
She further said that the international community has the responsibility to ensure that the rights of Afghan girls and women are restored without delay. According to UNESCO, currently, around 80 per cent of school-aged Afghan girls and young women are out of school under the Taliban rule, as they denied them access to secondary schools and universities.
After the Taliban ordered an indefinite ban on university education for Afghan girls, several humanitarian organisations including Education Cannot Wait(ECW), a United Nations Global, billion dollar fund for education in emergencies and protracted crisis called the Taliban authorities in Kabul to revoke their decision to suspend the university education of Afghan women.
Also, as per UNICEF report released in August, the fact that girls in Afghanistan are deprived of secondary education has cost the country’s economy at least USD 500 million over the past 12 months, which amounts to 2.5 per cent of GDP.
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