A senior Taliban leader has publicly criticized his government’s policy of prohibiting female education in Afghanistan, calling it a “personal choice” rather than an interpretation of Islamic law, or Sharia.
The rare public rebuke from Sher Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban deputy foreign minister, comes amid persistent international calls for Afghanistan’s rulers to permit girls’ education in secondary schools and beyond, as well as to remove restrictions on women’s access to public life at large.
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 2021, and their reclusive leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, has introduced his strict interpretation of Sharia to govern the conflict-ravaged country through dozens of edicts, primarily curbing girls’ access to education beyond the sixth grade and prohibiting most women in workplaces and public life at large.
“We call on the leadership of the Islamic Emirate [Taliban] to make education accessible to everyone,” Stanikzai told a religious seminary graduation ceremony in the Afghan border province of Khost. “There is no justification for denying this, just as there was no justification for it in the past, and there shouldn’t be one at all,” he asserted in a speech Afghan TOLO news aired Sunday, following the ceremony the day before.
Stanikzai suggested that the world is critical of the Taliban’s curbs on women and “this is precisely the problem” that they have with the Afghan government, which has not been officially recognized by any country, primarily over its treatment of the female population.
“Today, we are committing an injustice against 20 million people out of a total population of 40 million. We have stripped them of all their rights by closing the doors to schools and universities for them, giving them away as compensation in personal disputes, and preventing them from choosing their husbands,” Stanikzai said.
“Are we truly following Sharia? … The path we are currently following is guided by personal choice, not Sharia,” he said.
Stanikzai has been publicly speaking out against bans on female education, but his latest relatively harsh remarks represent the first direct challenge to the edicts issued by Akhudzada from his base in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that primarily targeted women.
The Taliban regained power after years of launching insurgent attacks against U.S.-led international forces, which ultimately withdrew from Afghanistan in August 2021. This withdrawal was a result of a February 2020 agreement negotiated between then-President Donald Trump’s administration and the Taliban, with Stanikzai leading the insurgents in the discussions.
In a speech earlier this month, Stanikzai described Trump, who is set to return to the U.S. presidency Monday, as a “decisive” and “courageous” U.S. leader, predicting a shift in Washington’s policies toward Afghanistan under the new Trump administration.
“We hope that he takes positive steps forward. We will also come forth, God willing. We want to build good relations with the international community and the Western countries,” Stanikzai said.
The United Nations and global human rights defenders have persistently denounced Taliban restrictions on women.
Last August, the Taliban announced a new law on the promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, which bars women from traveling or using public transportation without a male guardian. The law requires women and girls to cover their faces in public and prohibits them from singing in public or letting their voices be heard outside the house.
Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, has documented in his reports “an institutionalized system of discrimination, segregation, disrespect for human dignity, and exclusion of women and girls.” The Taliban banned Bennett from visiting the country in September.