Almost a year since their surprise military triumph across Afghanistan, no country has officially recognized the Taliban as the legitimate government. Diplomats say the ban on girls’ education is one of the main reasons the Taliban remain international pariahs. Many in the ranks of the movement, who want their own daughters to be educated, are outraged. Classes were due to resume in March until a last-minute reversal, apparently at the behest of hardliners close to the movement’s supreme leader, Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. The all-male group of religious and community leaders spent three days discussing the future of the country, largely united under Taliban rule after decades of civil war. There was hope that they could provide political incentives or cover for the Taliban leadership to reverse the ban. But only two of the 4,500 participants called for secondary schools for girls to be reopened, Afghanistan’s Tolo TV channel reported. And in their latest announcement, the clergy made only passing reference to the need for “religious and modern education” and to respect “women’s rights.” He did not specify whether these rights include schooling. Taliban leader Mullah Haibatullah Akhundzada. Photo: Reuters “It’s hard to get too excited about vague references to education and women’s rights at the end of the big Taliban meeting when the Taliban had previously made a very clear promise to reopen all schools only to break that promise,” said Heather Barr, Women’s Rights Fellow. director at Human Rights Watch. “Donors, diplomats and the United Nations must act as if this ban is likely to be permanent… It is long past time for the international community to respond to their gender apartheid in ways more tangible than statements of deep concern.” Akhundzada came to Kabul from his base in the southern city of Kandahar to address the rally. It was his first known trip to the capital since the Taliban seized it last August. He attacked foreigners’ demands on the government, as UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet called for an end to the country’s “systematic oppression” of women. Women cannot work in most sectors outside of health and education, need a male guardian for long-distance travel, and have been ordered to cover their faces in public. The meeting was closed to the media, but in an audio recording Akhundzada, a hardliner whose son was a suicide bomber, warned the international community not to get involved in Afghanistan. “Thank God we are now an independent country. [Foreigners] they should not give us their orders, it is our system and we have our own decisions,” he said, according to the official Bakhtar news agency.
