The appointment, scheduled for January 24 at the organization’s New York headquarters, will bring together Secretary-General António Guterres and UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay to call for respect for women in the South Asian nation.
“No country in the world should prevent women and girls from getting an education,” Azoulay said recently while calling on the world to act.
“The international community has a responsibility to ensure that the rights of Afghan girls and women are restored without delay. The war on women must end,” she added.
According to UN estimates, 80 percent of school-age women and girls (2.5 million) in Afghanistan are out of school, while nearly 30 percent have never attended primary school.
The situation worsened after the Taliban banned girls from secondary school in September 2021, leaving 1.1 million over the age of 12 without access to formal education.
University education for women was also suspended in December 2022, affecting more than 100,000 young people attending higher state and private institutions.
According to the UN, the ban also represented “a huge step backwards for the country”, where before these measures a third of the female sector was enrolled in universities.
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