Afghanistan: Banning women and girls from schools and workplace jeopardises entire country, UN committee condemns

GENEVA (29 December 2022) – The UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) has strongly condemned the recent decisions by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan to exclude women and girls from universities and ban them from working for non-governmental organisations (NGOs), saying they are cruel violations of women and girls’ rights.

They stressed that these policies would result in one of the world’s largest gender gaps and jeopardise the entire country for generations. The Committee issued the following statement:

“We condemn in the strongest terms the decision by the de facto authorities in Afghanistan to exclude women and girls from universities. We also deplore the latest decree to ban women from working for NGOs.

Since returning to power, the de facto authorities have shut down secondary schools for girls across the country, and it is estimated that more than one million girls have been barred from attending high school over the past year. With the latest ban on universities, the country is now excluding half of its population from normal schooling, creating one of the world’s biggest gender gaps.

The order forbids women from working in NGOs, which will not only deprive them and their families of income but will also completely erase their only social life and deny them an opportunity to contribute to the country’s development.

Their exclusion also means millions of women and girls could be left out of the humanitarian response, which is critically important to the country where about six million people are at risk of famine.

These destructive policies will have harmful consequences for Afghanistan for generations to come.

These decisions must be reversed immediately, and women and girls of all ages in every part of Afghanistan should be allowed to return to their classrooms and workplace safely. We recall our 2020 recommendations to the country to ‘ensure that women and girls have the same level of access to secondary and higher education as men and boys’.

The exclusion of women and girls from secondary schools and universities amounts to a direct violation of the country’s binding legal obligations to uphold the fundamental human rights and freedoms guaranteed in customary international law and human rights treaties to which it is a party, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

We call upon the de facto authorities to revoke these decisions without delay in order to fully comply with the CEDAW Convention and other human rights treaties, with the view to restoring access to all levels of education for women and girls throughout the country.

The full realisation of their right to education and the right to participate freely and safely in the development of Afghan society are interlinked. The Committee urges the de facto authorities to respect and protect the rights of women and girls to peaceful assembly in recent demonstrations triggered by the decisions to ban women from universities. The Committee also calls for the immediate release of the women reportedly arrested during these protests.”