ISLAMABAD: Nobel Laureate and global girls’ education rights advocate Malala Yousafzai has said Afghan Taliban were not the true representatives of Islam and Afghan culture.
In an interview with “Kake” TV, an affiliate of ABC, the youngest Nobel laureate said that Islam had never forbidden the education and work of women.
She said that the lack of global support for Afghan women was a significant mistake, and its consequences would not be limited to Afghanistan alone.
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Yousafzai pointed out the long-term impacts of depriving Afghan women of education under the Taliban’s rule, stating: “The less Afghan women are educated, the more their children are exposed to dangerous (extremist) ideologies.”
Her comments come as the hairline Taliban, since returning to power, have stripped citizens, especially women, of their fundamental rights and freedoms, imposing severe restrictions on their movement within the country, including in parks.
The Taliban have also banned girls and women above the sixth grade from going to schools and universities.
These actions by the Taliban have sparked widespread internal and global reactions, including from Islamic countries and religious scholars, but the Taliban have yet to make any changes to these policies.
Malala Yousafzai survived a bullet attack in the head when she was 15 in her native Swat as she campaigned against the Pakistani Taliban’s moves to deny girls education.
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Since winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, Yousafzai, now 27, has become a global symbol of the resilience of women in the face of repression.
Since returning to power, the Taliban has also stopped most Afghan female staff from working at aid agencies, closed beauty salons, barred women from parks and curtailed travel for women in the absence of a male guardian.
The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan custom and that officials are working on plans to open girls’ high schools, but after over 18 months they have not provided a timeframe.