Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school due to growing insecurity and poverty, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said on Tuesday, underlining the challenges of educating women in the patriarchal country 16 years after the Taliban were ousted.
While millions more girls are receiving an education than during the Taliban’s repressive 1996-2001 regime, progress has stalled in recent years, the rights group warned, with the proportion of women students falling in parts of the country.
About 85% of the 3.5 million children out of school are girls, the New York-based organisation said in a report based on research in four provinces and government data. “Sixteen years after the U.S.-led military intervention in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school,” it said. But the rights group warned the real situation was likely much worse because Afghanistan does not record children as being out of school until they have failed for three years to attend class.
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An Education Ministry official told Human Rights Watch in April that 39% of the 9.3 million students in school were girls but the group noted that Afghan government data was notoriously unreliable.
Among the many barriers to girls’ education are a lack of schools, women teachers and basic facilities such as toilets.