Taliban to 'very soon' allow secondary school for girls, UN official says

A senior UN official has said the Taliban told him they will announce “very soon” that all Afghan girls will be allowed to attend secondary schools.

UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi, who visited Kabul last week, told reporters on Friday at UN headquarters that five of Afghanistan's 34 provinces - Balkh, Jawzjan and Samangan in the northwest, Kunduz in the northeast and Urozgan in the southwest - are already allowing girls to attend secondary school.

He said the Taliban’s education minister told him they are working on “a framework” to allow all girls to continue their schooling beyond the sixth grade, which should be published “between a month and two.”

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Millions missing school

“As I speak to you today, millions of girls of secondary school age are missing out on education for the 27th consecutive day,” Abdi said. “We are urging them not to wait. Any day that we wait -- it’s a day lost for those girls that are out of school.”

During the Taliban's previous rule of Afghanistan from 1996-2001, they denied girls and women the right to education and barred them from working and public life. 

Since their Aug. 15 takeover of Afghanistan as US and NATO forces were in the final stages of their chaotic withdrawal from the country after 20 years, the Taliban have come under increasing international pressure to ensure women’s rights to education and work.

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