The Taliban government in Afghanistan did not attend an important meeting about girls’ education held in Pakistan. Pakistan’s education minister, Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui, said they sent an invitation to the Taliban, but nobody came. He stated, “We invited Afghanistan, but no one from their government showed up.”
This summit gathered education leaders from many countries where most people are Muslims, but Afghanistan was absent. Currently, Afghanistan is the only country in the world that does not allow girls to go to school.
In his speech at the summit, Pakistan’s Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif emphasized that not letting girls have an education takes away their freedom and future opportunities. “Denying education to girls is like denying their voice,” Sharif said.
Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, they have stopped girls from getting an education after sixth grade. They have also made it hard for women to work and go outside. The Taliban has rules saying women must cover their bodies completely in public and cannot pray out loud in front of each other.
Nobel Prize winner Malala Yousafzai has come to Pakistan to speak at this meeting about girls’ education. She was shot by the Taliban in 2012 for going to school and has only visited Pakistan a few times since then. Malala plans to talk about the importance of girls’ rights to education and why leaders should hold the Taliban responsible for how they treat Afghan women and girls
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