A senior Taliban figure has urged the group’s leader to scrap education bans on Afghan women and girls, saying there is no excuse for them.
In a rare public rebuke of government policy, Sher Abbas Stanikzai, political deputy at the foreign ministry, made the remarks during a speech in south-eastern Khost province.
He told an audience at a religious school ceremony there is no reason to deny education to women and girls, “just as there was no justification for it in the past and there shouldn’t be one at all”.
The government has barred females from education after sixth grade, which is around 11 years old. Last September, there were reports authorities had also stopped medical training and courses for women.
In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals. Authorities have yet to confirm the medical training ban.
In a video shared by his official account on social media platform X, Mr Stanikzai said: “We call on the leadership again to open the doors of education.
Mr Stanikzai was once the head of the Taliban team in talks that led to the complete withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.
It is not the first time he has said women and girls deserve to have an education. He made similar remarks in September 2022, a year after schools closed for girls and months before the introduction of a university ban.
But the latest comments marked his first call for a change in policy and a direct appeal to Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada.
Ibraheem Bahiss, an analyst with Crisis Group’s South Asia programme, said Mr Stanikzai has periodically made statements calling education a right of all Afghan women.
“However, this latest statement seems to go further in the sense that he is publicly calling for a change in policy and questioned the legitimacy of the current approach,” he said.
In the Pakistani capital Islamabad earlier this month, Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban on women and girls’ education.
She was speaking at a conference hosted by the Organisation of Islamic Co-operation and the Muslim World League.
The UN has said recognition is almost impossible while bans on female education and employment remain in place and women cannot go out in public without a male guardian.
