Enlarge image
Taliban fighters in Afghanistan (archive photo)
Photo: MAXIM SHIPENKOV / EPA-EFE
The radical Islamic Taliban in Afghanistan, who are struggling for international recognition, will be allowing girls to attend secondary schools next week at the start of the new school year.
"All schools will be opened to all boys and girls," said Kabul Education Ministry spokesman Asis Ahmad Rajan.
However, girls should only be taught separately from boys and only by female teachers.
In rural areas with few teaching staff, older teachers could, exceptionally, also take over the teaching of the girls.
Access to education for girls and women is one of the key demands of the international community to the Taliban, who took over the government last August after years of fighting.
Most countries do not recognize the new rulers and justify this, among other things, with the position of women in a fundamentalist Islamist society.
During their first rule from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban excluded women from education and almost all jobs.
Women had to give up jobs
The Taliban want to go back to governing the country according to their interpretation of Islamic law.
At the same time, they depend on billions in aid from the West to fight widespread poverty and hunger.
The aid was largely discontinued last year.
Women in Afghanistan have reported in recent months that they are often denied participation in public life.
In several cases, those affected had to give up their jobs.
Women's rights director Heather Barr at Human Rights Watch warned that the reopening of schools for girls is not necessarily an indication of respect for women's rights.
til/Reuters