Afghanistan: middle and high schools reopen for boys only

A 100% male start: only Afghan middle and high school students were allowed to go back to school on Saturday, a measure deplored by Unicef, which urged the new Taliban regime not to “

leave the girls behind

”.

Read alsoAfghanistan: the Taliban replace the Ministry for Women with that of the Prevention of Vice

Ten days after the reopening of the country's private universities, the Ministry of Education announced Friday that "

all male teachers and

secondary school

students

" would return to their establishment, without making any mention of teachers or college girls.

This vagueness risks fueling even more the concern of part of the Afghan population and the international community who fear to see the same scenario reoccurring as when the fundamentalists first came to power, between 1996 and 2001.

The Islamist movement had pursued a particularly brutal policy towards women, who were not allowed to work, study, play sports or go out alone in the street.

After the departure of the Taliban, driven out by an international coalition led by the United States, women had gradually been able to recover their fundamental rights and access jobs that had been prohibited to them, as judge, parliamentarian or pilot. "

Unicef ​​welcomes the reopening of secondary schools in Afghanistan, but stresses that girls should not be left out,

" reacted Friday the executive director of the UN agency, Henrietta Fore. "

It is essential that all, including the oldest, can resume their education without further delay, and that teachers can also continue to teach,

" Unicef ​​insisted in a statement, recalling "

considerable progress in the country over the past two decades

”.

In the space of twenty years, the number of schools has tripled and the number of children attending school has increased from 1 million to 9.5 million, according to the UN agency.

Prevention of vice

Since their return to power, the Taliban have tried to reassure the international community by ensuring, among other things, that women's rights would be respected.

But these claims have been weakened in recent weeks by several decisions taken by the new Afghan executive.

Women certainly retain the right to study at university, but for this they will have to wear an abaya and a hijab and classes will be carried out as far as possible in single sex.

No woman is also included in the new provisional executive presented in early September.

As for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, feared for its fundamentalism during the first Taliban episode, it now seems to occupy the premises of the former Ministry of Women's Affairs.

A month after the capture of Kabul by the Taliban, the aftershocks of the chaotic evacuations that followed the arrival of the Islamist movement continue to be felt.

In Washington, the US military admitted Friday having killed ten innocent Afghan civilians in a "

tragic

"

blunder by

accidentally

hitting a vehicle it believed to be filled with explosives.

The day after the strike, carried out on August 29, the family of the driver of the vehicle, Ezmarai Ahmadi, claimed that he was employed by an NGO and that ten people, most of them children, had been killed.

Over 71,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians have been killed during the 20-year war in Afghanistan.

Dutch resignations

In the Netherlands, it was the Dutch Minister of Defense Ank Bijleveld who announced her resignation after the chaotic management of the evacuation from Afghanistan, following in the footsteps of the head of diplomacy of her country Sigrid Kaag. This resignation comes the day after a motion tabled by deputies criticizing the government for having failed, among other things, to evacuate certain Afghans. On the diplomatic front, Russian President Vladimir Putin hoped that the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), led by Moscow and Beijing, establishes itself as a partner of the Taliban so that they keep their promises to fight against "

terrorism

”.

Traveling to Pakistan on Friday, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi once again called on the international community to act, warning of a refugee crisis. Afghanistan will be at the center of multiple discussions at the UN General Assembly next week. The question of who will speak for Kabul is not yet settled.