The UN calls on the Taliban to repeal “all discriminatory laws” that prevent women from going to school in Afghanistan

OCHA warns that the country “is facing an unprecedented humanitarian crisis”

24 Jan. (EUROPA PRESS) –

The Secretary General of the United Nations, António Guterres, has demanded this Tuesday that the Taliban put an end to “all discriminatory laws and practices” that prevent access to education for girls in Afghanistan.

“I call on the Taliban to remove the outrageous and counterproductive ban on access to secondary and higher education for girls and women in Afghanistan,” Guterres said in a message on his Twitter account on the occasion of World Education Day. Education.

“Now is the time to put an end to all discriminatory laws and practices that undermine access to education,” he said, after stressing that “education is a fundamental right and the pillar of society.”

The Taliban, who seized power in August 2021 after the seizure of Kabul, announced in December that they were extending the ban on access to classrooms for women to universities, after months of suspension in secondary education.

The Taliban authorities have faced criticism for the closure of educational centers and the exclusion of female students from them, in the midst of a battery of discriminatory measures against women that keep them from their jobs and govern aspects of their daily lives. .

For its part, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) warned on Monday that Afghanistan “faces an unprecedented humanitarian crisis with a very real risk of systemic collapse and human catastrophe.”

“In addition to unimaginable human costs, this humanitarian crisis is reversing the progress of recent years, also in relation to women’s rights,” said the organization, which recalled that the collapse of the government of Ashraf Ghani led to the suspension of international direct aid.

In this sense, he stressed that 28.3 million people, close to two thirds of the population, will need urgent humanitarian aid in 2023 to “survive”, at a time when the country is entering its third consecutive year of conditions similar to the drought.

OCHA said 17 million people will face acute hunger this year, including six million people at emergency levels of food insecurity, putting them “one step away from famine.”

“Deterioration is expected during the first quarter of 2023 due to the simultaneous effects of winter and lean season, high food prices, reduced income and rising unemployment, as well as the continued downturn in the economy “, argument.

The number of people in need of humanitarian aid has increased from 24.4 million people in 2022 and 18.4 million in 2021. Therefore, OCHA called for “substantial investments” in water infrastructure, sustainable agriculture, reform of gender policy and macroeconomic stabilization”.