Taliban skip OIC meet on girls’ education in Pakistan

Taliban-led Afghanistan skipped a two-day summit in Pakistan’s Islamabad, organised by the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) focussing on girls’ education in Muslim-majority countries, which was also attended by brand ambassador of the fight for girls’ education Malala Yousafzai on Saturday. The development comes amid the recent spike in tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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The OIC summit titled “Girls’ Education in Muslim Communities: Challenges and Opportunities”, is a Saudi-backed initiative and hosted by Pakistan. The summit is aimed to pressure Taliban to reconsider its ban on girls’ education. The OIC, 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 said decades of progress in Afghanistan have been rolled back since 2021, following Taliban’s takeover of the country.

Pakistan education minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told international news agencies that an invitation was send to the Taliban government in Afghanistan, however, no one showed up for the summit.

Tensions erupted between the two countries after a Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) attack left at least 16 Pakistani soldiers dead on December 21. Pakistan has been accusing the TTP of using Afghanistan as a base to orchestrate attacks on Pakistani security forces. For decades Pakistan had been supporting Taliban. Following the group’s takeover of Kabul in 2021, Islamabad had expected Taliban to crackdown on the TTP. However, the Taliban has not confronted the TTP.

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 2021. The agency said, “Taliban has wiped out two decades of steady progress in education in Afghanistan. An increasingly massive drop-out rate” at the primary school level threatens a rise in child labour and early marriage” in the country.”

It stated 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, the Taliban extended the ban to higher education, excluding over 1,00,000 young women from universities and shutting down medical institutes.

The event was also attended by girls’ education activict Malala Yousafzai.

Nobel Peace Prize laureate 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.