Taliban skips OIC summit on girls’ education amidst rising tensions with Pakistan

The Taliban-led government in Afghanistan skipped a crucial two-day summit in Islamabad, Pakistan, organised by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to discuss girls’ education in Muslim-majority countries. The summit, titled “Girl’s Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities”, aimed to pressure the Taliban to reconsider its ban on girls’ education.

Pakistan’s Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui confirmed that an invitation was sent to the Taliban government, but no representative attended the summit. This development comes amidst rising tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan, following a Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attack that killed 16 Pakistani soldiers on December 21 last year. Pakistan has been accusing TTP of using Afghanistan as base to orchestrate attacks on Pakistani security forces. For decades now, Pakistan has been supporting Taliban. Following the group’s takeover of Kabul in 2021, Islamabad had expected Taliban to crackdown on TTP. However, Taliban has taken no confrontation with TTP.

The OIC summit was attended by Malala Yousafzai, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate and brand ambassador for girls’ education. Yousafzai emphasised the importance of protecting girls’ rights to education and holding the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women and girls.

Yousafzai was shot in 2012 for opposing TTP restrictions on female education in Pakistan. “I am excited to join Muslim leaders from around the world for a critical conference on girls’ education. On Sunday, I will speak about protecting rights for all girls to go to school, and why leaders must hold the Taliban accountable for their crimes against Afghan women and girls,” she said on X.

OIC, which was founded in 1969, has 57 members, 56 of which are also member states of the UN, with 48 countries being Muslim majority countries. UN’s specialised agency UNESCO has already said the decades of progress in Afghanistan’s development has been rolled back since 2021, following Taliban’s takeover of the country.

UNESCO listed Afghanistan as the only country in the world where girls are denied access to education. The agency states 1.4 million girls have been banned from school since Taliban took over. The agency mentioned: Taliban rule has wiped out “two decades of steady progress in education”, while a “massive drop-out rate” at the primary school level threatens “rise in child labour and early marriage” in the country.

It stated that nearly 2.5 million girls have been deprived of their right to education, representing 80 per cent of Afghan school-age girls in the country after Taliban rose to power. In December 2022, Taliban extended the ban to higher education, excluding over 100,000 young women from universities and shutting down medical institutes.