Radicalization of Education in Afghanistan: Access to Justice and Implications for Peace and Security (CSW70 Side Event)
Economic and Social Council
Date: 11 March 2026
Language: English
Transcript: https://transcripts.un.org/ar/asset/k1y/k1yfbcohm4?lang=en
Transcripts available through this tool are created by using automatic speech recognition and are not official records nor official documents of the United Nations. Official records and official documents are available on the Official Document System of the United Nations.

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Afghanistan [0:00]:

Good morning and welcome on behalf of the Permanent Mission of Afghanistan to the United nations and our co organizers. I would like to warmly thank you for joining us for this important discussion on the emergence of the 17th session of the Commission on the Status of Women. I would also like to express our sincere appreciation to our partners and co organizers, the Permanent Mission of Kingdom of Netherlands, the Wellesley center for Women, the Afghanistan Policy Lab at Princeton University, and women leaders of tomorrow for their collaboration in organizing this event. Allow me to begin with a brief housekeeping note. Our program will consist of opening remarks followed by a panel discussion and then an opportunity for questions and interventions from the floor.

Before we conclude, for those wishing to speak, I kindly encourage you to indicate your interest to my colleague at the secretary, Ms. Nabila, my colleague. She will be sitting there on the sides of the table and we would be happy to have the questions in advance or statements. Now I will deliver my remarks on behalf of Afghanistan Mission. Our discussion today takes place within the framework of the priority theme of CSW 70 strengthening access to justice for women and girls and ensuring their full participation in society. Unfortunately, nowhere in the world is this challenge more urgent than in Afghanistan.

Nearly five years after the Taliban's takeover, Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are banned from secondary and higher education. Nationwide today, approximately 2.2 million adolescent girls are denied the basic right to attend school. This is not simply a policy decision about education education it represents the systematic dismantling of the future of an entire generation. At the same time, we are witnessing a deliberate transformation of Afghanistan's education system. While modern education opportunities for girls have been closed, religious madrasas are rapidly expanding across the country.

Curricula are being reshaped in ways that restrict critical thinking, marginalize science and civic education, and promote rigid and exclusionary interpretations of religion. Education, which should be a pathway to knowledge, opportunity and empowerment, risks being turned into an instrument of ideological control. The consequences extend far beyond classrooms. When girls are denied education, societies lose teachers, doctors, scientists, entrepreneurs and leaders. The systematic exclusion of women educators has already weakened Afghanistan's educational and professional infrastructure, and the consequences are not only social or economic, they are also political and security related.

The exclusion of half of society undermines social cohesion, fuels radicalization, and threatens long term peace and stability. The situation also extends beyond schools. Women and girls have been pushed out of public life more broadly, including cultural, civic, and even sporting spaces. Afghan women who once represented their country in international competitions now face exclusion at home, yet many continue to demonstrate extraordinary courage and resilience. Some of Them are with us today.

The stories of Afghan women athletes, educators and activists remind us of an important truth. Afghan women are not merely victims of circumstances, they are agents of change. Despite every restrictions, Afghan women and girls continue to pursue education through alternative pathways. Informal community initiatives, digital learning platforms and online education programs have become lifelines for many inside Afghanistan and for those in exile. At a time when the global economy is being transformed by digital technologies, artificial intelligence and new forms of knowledge based work, excluding Afghan women from education means excluding them from the future.

If we are serious about justice, equality and women in peace and security agenda, we must ensure that Afghan women and girls are not left behind in this transformation. Their voices must be heard and they must be meaningfully included in decisions that affect their future. Today's discussion, therefore, seeks not only to examine the realities of the radicalization of education in Afghanistan, but also to explore possible solutions. How can the international community support alternative education pathways for Afghan girls? How can digital and online education expand access to learning despite restrictions?

And how can we ensure accountability for policies that deny millions of girls for their fundamental rights? Because sustainable peace in Afghanistan will not be achieved through exclusion. It will only be achieved through a legitimate and inclusive system that reflects the aspirations and rights of all Afghan women and men alike. Allow me to conclude with this simple but essential reminder. Education is not only a human right, it is also the foundation of justice, dignity and long term stability.

When education is restricted, peace becomes fragile. When education is radicalized, the future becomes uncertain. But when education is inclusive, societies have the chance to thrive. I look forward to hearing from our distinguished speakers who bring extraordinary experiences and insight to this discussion, including important perspectives and testimonies from inside Afghanistan. Thank you all for joining us.

And I would like to it's now my pleasure to invite Ambassador Abdullah Raz, Director of Afghanistan Policy Lab at Princeton University's School of Public and International affairs, to deliver her remarks.


Afghanistan Policy Lab · Director · Adela Raz [7:02]:

Ambassador thank you, Mr. F. Excellencies, distinguished guests, colleagues and friends, good morning. My name is Adela Raz. I'm the former Ambassador of Afghanistan and the Director of Afghanistan Policy Lab at spia.

Welcome and thank you for being here. We gather Today during the 70th session of the Commission on Status of Women, a moment when the world reflects on the progress women have made and recommits to advancing equality and justice. March is also Women's History Month, a time when we celebrate the courage, leadership and achievements of women across generations. But as we celebrate women's history, we must also confront a difficult question. What does women's history mean for a Country where women are being pushed away out of the present.

In Afghanistan today, millions of women and girls are living through a reality that few could have imagined just a few years ago. Girls are banned from secondary schools and universities. Women are restricted from many forms of work and from participating fully in public life. Spaces that once belonged to women, such as classrooms, offices, sports fields and civic institutions, have been closed. This is not simply about policy choices.

It's about the systematic shrinking of space for half of a society. And yet, despite all of this, Afghan women have refused to disappear. They have refused to accept sexual silence, and they have refused to give up on their strength and power and on their role in the community. Their resilience is remarkable. But resilience alone should never be the expectations placed on women whose rights are being erased.

Resilience must be met with solidarity, and courage must be met with action.

Because when the rights of millions of women are eliminated so openly and so systematically, the question is not only what is happening inside a country, but how the world chooses to respond. The international community has repeatedly affirmed its commitment to women's right to equality and justice, from the Beijing Platform for Action to commitments of the Women Peace and Security Agenda. But commitments must mean something in moments like this. They must translate into sustained attention, coordinated policies, and meaningful support for those who are being pushed aside. We cannot allow the situation of Afghan women to become normalized.

We cannot allow fatigue or competing global crises to push this issue to the margins. And we also cannot allow a generation of Afghan girls to grow up believing that the world accepted their exclusion. A peaceful and prosperous Afghanistan requires the full participation of Afghan women and their recognition of their immense potential. When education becomes restricted, distorted or inaccessible, the consequences extend far beyond individual lives. The future of a generation and the stability of a society, a country, and even a region is affected.

This is why today's conversation matters. Today, we're not only discussing the challenges facing women and girls in Afghanistan. We're also asking a broader question. What responsibility does the international community carry now? Afghan women's resilience should not only inspire admiration, it should inspire action.

Action to support education, action to protect the rights of women and girls. An action to ensure that the future generation, boys and girls alike, can grow up in a society where knowledge is valued and opportunity is shared. Today's discussion brings together voices that can help illuminate both the challenges and the possibilities ahead. I hope our conversation will not only deepen our understanding of the situation, but also strengthens our our collective commitment to ensuring that Afghan women and girls are not left behind. Thank you all for joining us today and for standing with Afghan women and girls.

And of course, now it's my great honor to hand it over to our moderator for today's discussion, Ms. Minky. Ms. Minky Warden is the director of Global Initiative at Human Rights Watch, where she leads global advocacy campaigns addressing some of the world's most urgent human rights challenges. Challenges. With more than two decades of experience working with journalists, policymakers and civil Society across nearly 90 countries, she has played an important role in bringing global attention to issues of justice, accountability and human dignity. Minky, the floor is yours.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [12:37]:

Thank you very much and welcome to everyone here today. I wanted to begin by saying that Human Rights Watch has covered abuses in Afghanistan, the full spectrum of international human rights abuses for more than 40 years and especially since August of 2021, we have focused on the denial of fundamental rights, including the denial of the basic right to education, which is the topic of our discussion today.

And we have an incredible group of speakers today. I'm going to introduce each of them as I ask the first question and they are going to prepare present on the topic. But I also wanted to add that we have a lot of expertise in the room, so we not only have profiles encouraged here across our list of speakers, but also athletes, experts, women's rights leaders, education leaders here with us in the room today. So thank you very much.

I will be directing questions to each of the speakers and that speak to their expertise. And I'm thrilled to ask the first question to Freba Rezi. Freiba is the founder and executive director of Women Leaders of Tomorrow and that is a nonprofit that is dedicated to creating life changing opportunities, including through education and through sports. She is also a women's rights defender, especially through the lens of sport, which has been banned by the Taliban as one of its first acts on taking over in 2021. Perhaps she is best known as one of Afghanistan's first two female Olympians at the Olympics in 2004, and her sport is judo.

So I wanted to begin with that first question, picking up on your experience as an Afghan woman who has lived much of her life in the spotlight and also someone who is dedicated to using education as a way to advance women's rights and public policy. Young people today in Afghanistan have a shrinking space for education, employment and civic participation. Women indeed are denied all civic participation and this leads to a situation where some are leaving the country, others are being exposed to environments that fuel extremism. Can you talk about the consequences for the younger generation? I know that you are in regular touch with athletes and others who are still inside the country and are doing their best to access their fundamental human rights.

What is your recommendation for reversing the denial of education and for the international community to support young people in Afghanistan?


Women Leaders of Tomorrow · Founder & Executive Director · Freba Rezi [15:44]:

Absolutely. Thank you so much, Minky and ambassadors of Afghanistan. The current situation has been described very well and the consequences for that is very dangerous and dire in Afghanistan because in the absence of proper and formal education, the young generation will be brainwashed into thinking that the only source of information are what they will be learning from Madrasas, which are fundamental religious schools. They mainly target young boys.

The kids will be also taught how to become Jihadists and they will be also allowed to perform corporal punishment on each other and in the society. They will be also given the authority to control the lives of their mothers, sisters, wives and any woman in the society. They will be given unchecked authority to also dictate and pursue Taliban's edicts in any female member of the society. Education is equally important as a sport for Afghan women and girls and the Taliban's edict have also been applying to that. Education has given us power and hope.

But given the current situation of the athletes, some of our athletes are in hiding, some of them are in exile, some of them left the country. And those who remain in Afghanistan, their support and resources are very, very limited to them. I must mention that the Taliban's sharia law is 1030 years old. We can confidently say that it's almost coming from a stone age. Such education is taking Afghanistan backwards instead of forwards and it has deadly consequences because it prevents young learners from modern science and math and other subjects.

Taliban Sharia law education is also beyond ridiculous because the world's best mathematicians and scholars are Muslims. The Taliban have taken and manipulated a noble religion into something that is barely recognizable. Furthermore, in the absence of formal education, the young girls will be brainwashed into believing that modern education is haram and sinful and therefore women and girls or any members of the society who are female should be prohibited from getting an education. They will be also trained to go inside the girls schools to spy for the Taliban and also prevent the young generation from getting formal education. The prevention of radicalization is simple actually recognize the Taliban's regime as a gender apartheid and hold them accountable.

In this modern day and time, we should have the backbone and the power to condemn the Taliban for human rights violation. Otherwise peace is unachievable without education and and sports. In order to engage in long term peace and security, it's crucial to work with the civil rights NGOs and the youth in Afghanistan. Thank you.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [18:58]:

Thanks very much. I'm very happy to introduce our second speaker, Pashana Durrani. Pashtana is the founder of Learn Afghanistan, which is an Afghan, and she is also a scholar in residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women, which is one of our co sponsors. Today, in 2018, Pashana launched Learn Afghanistan as the country's first digital school network. This was very groundbreaking at the time, and sadly, that network is now operating underground to provide a safe learning environment for girls under Taliban rule.

Pashtana is a Harvard University graduate and she is also an author. So, Pashana, my first question to you is about the sweeping changes that the Taliban has introduced to the education system. And this, of course, includes revising the school and university curricula, banning subjects such as arts and humanities, and appointing unqualified people as educators. These policies are affecting.

We already have a generation since 2021. But let's also say that the situation for education, particularly for women and girls before the Taliban takeover, was also challenging. And that was the reason that you founded learn.

I wanted to ask you, what can you give us the landscape now for education for women and girls in Afghanistan? And given the low digital, the low Internet access in the country, how is it possible to do online and digital education?

And will this serve as a viable pathway for the future?


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [20:50]:

Thank you, Minky, for that question. I would like to start answering that question by playing a video from one of our teachers from Herat. And it's a testimony from her. Can we play the video?


Speaker 7 [21:06]:

Herald Province being removed from the classroom is not only the loss of a provision, it's the loss of a space where I could guide and support young girls. When girls do not see women teaching, they begin to question their own future.

In my classroom, I tried to build confidence in hope. Education is not only about lessons, it's about believing in your potential. When women educators are excluded, girls lose role models who understand their challenges and dreams.

This does not only affect teachers, it affects the confidence of an entire generation. Education should include everyone. Girls still deserve guidance, dignity and the opportunity to learn.


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [21:54]:

As our teacher from Herat said, girls deserve dignity. They also deserve education and access to it. But quality education. The one thing I have realized as working in this field is it's very hard to work in a country like Afghanistan because there's always a new challenge. There's no electricity.

Sometimes I was talking to my teachers. Yesterday, the main challenge was electricity. Apart from the ban on education, there's lack of Internet. But you know, one thing, Minky, that makes me so happy is all those 13 teachers who showed up yesterday, all of them were so fiercely determined that all of their girls are going to get access to education. The landscape has changed.

The history books right now see the new Taliban leaders as people who are warriors who have freed the nation of Afghanistan. There are women who are being removed from the literature. Their women books are being banned right now in Afghanistan. But at the same time, you have to understand that the Ministry of Education is also hiring unqualified Taliban fighters as their teachers. And nobody is questioning that and nobody's challenging that.

So that's the landscape of Afghanistan. You can go to the website of Ministry of Education. Afghanistan probably is the only country where we don't have a national education strategic plan. We don't know where our country is ending. We don't even know where our boys are ending right now.

Not only the girls, including the boys. So, building on that, I think the landscape that we were trying to challenge in 2018 was lack of resources, lack of Internet, lack of electricity. What we are right now working under is an active ban where women are not allowed to teach, girls are not allowed to go to a school, and people are still doing it, young girls are still doing it, and young women are still teaching that. And that says a lot about the fabric of the society of Afghanistan, how determined people in Afghanistan are, and how much are they willing to not only challenge the current ban, but also challenge the Taliban? And that is my response to your question.

Yeah,


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [24:04]:

thank you very much. I think we're going to return to some of these topics as we advance our discussion. Now, I'm honored to present and ask a question to Abdullah Azizi, who is an affiliate with the Afghanistan Policy Lab at the Princeton School for Public and International affairs, which is also one of our co sponsors for the event today. Azizi earned his Master's already as a Fulbright Scholar, and he is particularly an expert in the topic of the potential for AI education, also public administration reform and women's empowerment.

I want to say a special thank you also for being part of our gender diversity on the panel today. We will not win this battle without men on our side. So I wanted to begin by asking you about the use of AI and to discuss how technology and artificial education could be used to support the education of Afghan women and girls and how essentially is. I think everyone in the room has the question of how is this possible when we know the technological limitations within the country? We know the security problems and the challenges?

So we're very keen to hear about your research. So Abdullah will be presenting today, especially on his research which points the way forward and he also has case studies from other countries which is very important in the UN context. So thank you. What is the way forward for women's education or a way forward?


Afghanistan Policy Lab · Affiliate · Abdullah Azizi [25:42]:

Thank you, Mink.

First of all, I take this opportunity to thank Ambassador Ross for providing me this opportunity to work on this incredible research to help Afghan women achieve economic self sufficiency. So this topic is very dear to me and I'm very passionate about it because my mom is my role model. And I believe both men and women, they are like two wings of a bird. So we have to work together to achieve prosperity. So if you allow me, I can go through my presentation very briefly and then if you have any follow up question, I would be more than happy to answer them.

So the objective of my research, my research has three key objectives. So the first one is to encourage a discussion on a paradigm shift when it comes to the education system in Afghanistan so that it's more aligned to the fourth and fifth industrial revolution. If we don't align our education system with these revolution, we would not advance, so the future would not be as prosperous as we want. The second objective is to contribute to the development of an AI education model which works without Internet connectivity. It can work on a smartphone, on a very inexpensive tablet or on a computer.

And that both objectives are aimed to empower Afghan women and girls towards economic self sufficiency. But it's not limited to Afghan women. I think boys and also other, you know, societies can benefit from this initiative. So according to UN Women, women in Afghanistan can only achieve 17% of their potential compared to globally which is 60%. And also when it comes to key human development dimensions, Afghan women achieve only 23% of what men achieve in these dimensions.

Furthermore, the current unjust ban on education and also restriction on unemployment further exacerbated the situation. Nearly 8 out of 10 Afghan women are excluded from these opportunities. Furthermore, Afghanistan education system is one of the worst performing education system. 93% of students by age 10, they cannot read and comprehend simple text.

The other major problem is Internet connectivity. If we see the data, only 6% of women have access to Internet. But if we zoom in on rural areas, it's only two person. For me it was very shocking. Kabul, which is the capital Of Afghanistan, only 3% of women have access to Internet.

So online education system, it's really good. I think they should be supported, complimented, and indeed it's a noble work. But Internet connectivity is a major problem to reach out to the masses.

Despite all these problems, there is still hope and huge potential. According to the World economic forum, the Fourth and Fifth Industrial Revolution would create more than 170 million jobs. But it may also displace 92 million jobs. It may impact women disproportionately. So for that reason, it's really, really important that we not only prepare Afghan women, but also women across the board to take advantage of these opportunities.

Otherwise we would not have a very prosperous future.

So I would speak methodology and case of study. So I would go back to the policy implication. So how we can address the low performing education system in Afghanistan. So I examined Singapore and Finland. They always rank very high when it comes to the quality education.

I also utilize the Program for International Student Assessment which evaluated more than 700 students from 81 countries and economies. So these are the policy recommendations. What are the common characteristics among these countries? They have long term vision when it comes to policy. So they don't change when party changes, when there's election changes.

So they always focus on long term when it comes to education. They always link their education system to the fourth and fifth Industrial revolution. So how they can prepare students so that they can benefit from job market in the in these revolution. The World Economic Forum called it Education 4.0. So we need to align our education system with 0.0.

For example in Finland the the curriculum is designed in a hybrid manner which is designed around multi literacy. It includes ICT skills, it includes business skills and also it's very much project based education. On the other hand, when we see Singapore, their education, it's very looking forward innovative and it's based on on problem driven education. So they apply education to solve real world problems.

Another important finding is that education is not now about credentials, whether you have master's degree, PhD. It's about the competency and skills. So your success would be determined based on your skills.

And finally, to address the problem of Internet activity, Running large scale models on local devices is getting momentum. So there's opportunity that we can develop these AI models which can run on a local device without the need to be connected to Internet. And this would be revolutionary. Students can use it from their cell phone, from their computer, from very inexpensive tablet. So for me it's really interesting to explore edge and open source technology would enable us to develop something which is offline, which is tailored to Afghanistan.

So I would end my presentation by sharing real life story and then call for action. So before coming to the US I was working with UNDP Afghanistan. So one of the important projects that I implemented was to help Afghan women establish businesses. So we did post assessment for that project and one of the participants stated that before I start my business, before I earn money, my husband never consulted me on important issues, as if I never existed. When my kids were asking for pocket money, then I would tell them that, okay, I would get it from your father and then I would give it to you.

But as soon as I started my business, as soon as I start earning money, my husband now consult me on all important issues. I feel more empowered, I'm more respected now when my kids ask me for pocket money, I just gave them. So I feel more empowered, more respected. And similarly, when my neighbors see the positive change within my family, they also ask to explore similar opportunities. So the point that I'm making is that if we can help Afghan women develop skill sets and competencies that can be monetized so that it can help them achieve economic self sufficiency, if we can provide them a problem driven education that they are able to solve any problem that they encounter in their life, if we provide them an education which is project based so that they can develop their own product so that they can enter business, then the sky is the limit and we can change this current status quo.

I think women would be more empowered, they would contribute more and they would have more freedom. And the good part is that we don't have to invest so much money when it comes to technology. The initial investment is necessary. It can be upskilled very quickly, not only for Afghan women, but for women around the world. So thank you so much.

That was the summary of my research paper. Thanks very much.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [35:24]:

I want to pick up on some of Abdullah's themes and as many people in the room know, the ban on the comprehensive ban on women and girls playing sports has had a very negative effect.

The human rights that are affected by the ban on sports are of course the right to health, the right to education. Because many women and girls only learned to play sports and to compete at an international level because they were able to go to school and learn in school. It also affects the ability to get scholarships.

And then finally, of course, sports is a multi trillion dollar business. So many women and girls before the Taliban takeover, although they always faced severe repression, threats and other attacks for being athletes and being prominent women's rights defenders, as athletes, they were able to access sports through the education system. I'm very happy and honored to introduce Zakiya Kuadati who is.

I've known about her and her work for many years. She is a para Taekwondo athlete and was represented Afghanistan at the 2020 Summer Paralympics, which of course took place in 2021 at exactly the time that the Taliban was taking over. And that was a very tense and stressful situation.

Amazingly, at the 2024 Summer Paralympics, Zakiya has become the first ever member of the refugee Paralympic team to win a medal, which is for the entire world. So it certainly goes beyond Afghanistan to be something that the entire refugee Olympic team can be proud of. I wanted to ask you about the situation for women and girls in relation to sport in Afghanistan and also outside of Afghanistan, and the prominence and the voice of Afghan women athletes, who as athletes now have the additional responsibility to be women's rights defenders and human rights defenders. Can you tell us what is the situation for Afghan women and girls and athletes in particular?


Refugee Paralympic Team · Para Taekwondo athlete · Zakiya Kuadati [37:56]:

Bonjour.

On Afghanistan

Paralympic the Tokyo Pol Afghanistan.

Pascu.


Afghanistan [39:24]:

On Afghanistan Excuse me, if I may just intervene. I think we don't have translation or translators. If you could kindly switch to English. But my English is not true.


Speaker 14 [39:43]:

You can switch to Farsi. I think.


Afghanistan [39:51]:

There is.


Speaker 16 [40:05]:

Okay.

Mazarat mikhail.

Okay, okay, sorry. Okay. So I need to be. Okay. I would try my best, but.

Okay, sure, but be brief.

So. Okay, okay. So she said that I've been living in France, so I have, you know, I'm more comfortable talking in French. Okay.

So she's very thankful to have this opportunity to present her experience. And also she got a medal. So she think that it's her responsibility to speak on behalf of Afghan women here.

Yeah. So due to, you know, psychological impact that it had because of the Afghan government collapse, so she was not able to get any medal in Tokyo Olympic. But then she. She got the medal and French Olympic and she dedicates the medal to all Afghan women.


Refugee Paralympic Team · Para Taekwondo athlete · Zakiya Kuadati [42:39]:

Afghanistan. Petori Kovel Ihakada Afghanistan as that story.


Speaker 18 [43:03]:

So she calls for an action to Olympic association and also parallel association, because in Afghanistan, women does not have any right to participate in any sport activity or going outside to participate in an activity.

So, as you know, the sports activity for women has been banned, but that those who does it in secrecy, they're targeted by the Taliban. They're imprisoned, and once they become public through media, they're released. But we don't know what happens to other women. So it's a very dark situation back in Afghanistan.


Refugee Paralympic Team · Para Taekwondo athlete · Zakiya Kuadati [44:27]:

Kinomi varzisha zindani ghatorum.


Speaker 20 [44:45]:

So I would strive and fight for all Afghan women so that, you know, sport is kept alive in their hearts so that one day they can also participate in Olympic or Paralympic.

Yes. And she calls for an action to end the discriminations against women and girl in Afghanistan, which is, you know, a dark history of our countries.

I try my best.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [45:42]:

Thank you very much. You did, both of you. You did brilliantly. Thank you. So I think we're going to have one more set of questions to really

drill down a little bit deeper into the experience of our speakers and our experts today. I want to say a special thank you to Zakiya for coming. She's come the furthest today from France to speak with us. So it's one of my lifetime honors to meet you.

And I would like to return to with a question that is also relevant for the room and that is, of course, you and Zakiya are both the highest level athletes from the Olympics and the Paralympics. And the sport system has its own form of recognition. So far, no governments in the world have recognized the Taliban as a legitimate government, in part because of the denial of fundamental rights, including the denial of access to education. Could you speak to us about the engagement of the Olympic system? I know that ahead of the Paris Olympics, you were concerned that the Olympics themselves might give a platform to the Taliban.

Could you talk about whether and how sport is a pressure point to advance with women's rights through sport? And are there credible initiatives underway to bring the Taliban to the table to restore education, perhaps using the pressure point of sport? So how can the ioc, how could the ipc, the International Paralympic Committee, how can these entities support Afghan women and girls in their fight, fight to restore education and by extension, of course, sport?

Because there will be no sport in the country for women and girls without education.


Women Leaders of Tomorrow · Founder & Executive Director · Freba Rezi [47:40]:

Thank you for that question. So as we know, when the Taliban returned in mid August 2021, one of their decrees that they released was on September 19, 2021, they. They banned sport. And as Zakiya said, they also announced that it's haram, it's sinful, and it's forbidden for women. When we say ban sport, it was not only a ban, they have also imposed a strict punishment for athletes or any female trainees.

Now, the entire National Olympic Committee and the federations are under the Taliban control and under the Taliban regime where they only allow sport for boys and for men. And the whole system is under the Taliban regime and control. And of course the ioc, the International Olympic Committee has a responsibility and accountability to make sure that any member of their NOC National Olympic Committee are in a good standing with the Olympic charter. So as we know the Taliban have violated the Olympic Charter as well. This is also a good time to remind when the Taliban reigned in 1990s, Afghanistan was banned from the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games because and for human rights violation.

So I believe that sport is a very critical pressure point to assure that sport becomes accessible to all female trainees at least and to everyone and to also make sure that we have equality. And the women's team are also seen as the same as the male athletes. So for example, a great example for now recently was that men's team did very well in futsal and they got gold medal in one of the Asian Games and there was a big, big celebration in the entire country. Even the Taliban celebrated that. But when women get medal, there's less recognition and celebration to that.

So the best approach to that is, and also for a long term solution is to work with the Afghan female athletes directly. There should be a direct dialogue and communication with the athletes because we know the best how to support the athletes and also the entire sports system in Afghanistan, because sport is really good, great way and is the best way to keep Afghanistan's flag out and tall and proud everywhere in the world. Thank you.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [50:18]:

Thanks very much. I also wanted to point out on the graphic from organization the many Afghan women's national team members who had to flee and evacuate their country and rebuild their lives and who are still competing. And I should say that Human Rights Watch has written to the icc, the

International Cricket Council, to recognize the Afghan women's national cricket team. We have pressured FIFA for many years, together with the Sport and Rights alliance and other groups to recognize the Afghan women's national football soccer team. And this is very important progress that the team has played its first match in Morocco last year and we expect that FIFA will recognize them at an upcoming FIFA congress at the end of April.

So I wanted to turn to Abdullah for a question to follow up because your background with the undp, can you talk a little bit about. I know that you've done case studies and you also have the academic research to back this up. Talk a little bit about reasons for hope for some of your proposals and some of your policies. Are there case studies from other countries that would show a way forward for Afghanistan even with the extreme restrictions that we've discussed and including limitations on technology?


Afghanistan Policy Lab · Affiliate · Abdullah Azizi [51:56]:

Thank you for asking this important question. So I think the good part when it comes to technology is that it's really difficult to restrict it. So Taliban cannot restrict technology. You know, there are like many ways that it can provide access to Afghan Women when it comes to comes to education. But the most important thing is that what kind of education we want to provide, whether it is something which is aligned with the future so that, you know, Afghan women can monetize it and can exploit the opportunities that the future present to us.

But if we continue the status quo as it, then Afghan girls and women, they would not be able to compete. So the first key is how we can bring that paradigm shift when it comes to the education. And then when it comes to the designing of the AI education model, there's robust data and evidence that it can work. For example, in Nigeria they implemented six week after school AI model education. So the result was amazing.

So the six week entire program produced learning gains which was equivalent to almost two years of traditional schooling, which shows that AI has so much potential. Then similar study was conducted in Turkey. So they created three groups, control group which didn't have access to any technology. And the second group was given full access to ChatGPT model which was not designed for education. And the third group was given access to an education AI model which was specifically designed for education.

So the findings was amazing. Those who had access to the AI model which was designed for education, their performance improved by 127%. Those who had access to full ChatGPT which was not designed for education, their performance improved by 48%. But then they say that okay, let's take another step deeper, take away these tools from them, give them pen and paper and then see how they perform. But the result was shocking.

So the group which had access to full chat GPT, which is not designed for education, actually their performance declined by 17% which indicates that AI can also inhibit learning. So it must be deployed by, by strong guardrails to protect our students and also to promote learning. But then the model which was designed for education model, we could not observe those negative impact. So for that reason it's really important how we design it. What are the, our vision for education and what kind of tool we use.

But I see there's so much potential, it can change Afghan women's, you know, life for better. But then it depends first part on our, you know, philosophy of education, the paradigm of education, which should be linked with the fourth and fifth industrial revolution so that they can exploit all those opportunities. Then we have to design a very careful AI model which, you know, encourage all those, you know, you know, pedagogical approaches, which is problem driven, which is more project based, which really help them, you know, learn all these ICT skills. And then ultimately we can Also develop offline AI model that we don't need Internet connectivity so that they can learn, so they can learn on their phone, on their tablet, on their cell phone. So I see there's so much potential, but we need that initial investment.

And I believe that it doesn't require so much investment, but once we have that investment, it can be upscaled and can be implemented in other contexts, in other countries.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [56:21]:

And just a direct question on that. Who is the appropriate agency to help develop this? Within the UN system, there are many agencies that deal with children's rights with education. What is UNESCO?


Afghanistan Policy Lab · Affiliate · Abdullah Azizi [56:36]:

Obviously, I think UNICEF and UNESCO, they always lead when it comes to education. I think they're the appropriate agencies to invest in such models. And I think that would be one time implementation and it can change many lives for better. And quite frankly, the private sector and the AI companies should be investing in this as well.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [57:01]:

Yeah, that's true.

So to keep with our theme of education, I wanted to turn back to Pashtana. And according to UNESCO, more than 2.3, 2.13 million primary age children are out of school and are falling far behind in basic levels of literacy and numeracy. And obviously the ban on girls section secondary education is leaving Afghanistan far behind

on every measurable area. I was also interested to learn that boys enrollment in higher education has also fallen. So the ban on education for women and girls is having clear negative effects for men and boys as well. Plus there is the problem that schools lack, as you say, electricity, clean water.

Can you give give us

some more examples? How many you know, tell us a little bit about your work with Learn Afghanistan. How many schools are you working in? What. What are some stories of hope from the front lines of education in Afghanistan, even under duress?


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [58:15]:

Thank you, Minky, for that question. I would like to, to start with playing another testimony from Afghanistan. If we could play that.


Student · Aisha [58:26]:

Salaam alaikum. I'm Aisha, a learner, one student from Kabul. Basically, as girls, when we were told that we can no longer continue our education, it didn't feel like a rule for us. It felt like our future has been, you know, erased quietly. And education is not just about books and exams and all of these.

It is identity, it is dignity. You know, it is dry to imagine who you can become. And when girls are banned from secondary and higher education, it's not only about classrooms that has been closed. It is doors to independence, to contribution, to hope that has been bent. And around the world, education is recognized as a basic human right.

Right? Yet here being A girl educating a girl is treated like a limitation instead of a strength. And I don't want sympathy, you know, girls don't want sympathy here anymore. We want opportunity. We want the same chance to learn, to grow and to serve our society and to fulfill our dreams.

And when you definitely, if you deny girls education, you do not protect a nation, you weaken it. And we're not asking for privilege. We're asking for our rights to exist fully through education. And I hope one day, no longer, you know, girls have to whisper their dreams in fear. I hope classrooms will reopen.

And I hope the world remembers that. Silencing girls does not create peace. It only delays progress. Thank you so much.


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [1:00:05]:

I tear up every time I hear my students talk. Because silencing students or young girls did not create peace. It's creating a silent country that is suffering. But coming back to everything that Abdullah talked about, I was like, oh, my God, I need to tell him all the things that I'm working on, and he needs to know. So these two people that you saw in my testimonies, one was a teacher, one was a student.

I promised myself a few months ago that every time I walk into powerful halls like these. Hello, everyone. Oops. I hope you all do. If we could.

If we could have their voices heard first, after, before mine. So, Minky, I'm happy to report to you, we have almost 21 schools in 21 provinces of Afghanistan. We have hybrid learning. Thank you. Thank you.

And this is from grade 7 to grade 12. And then the Taliban are like, we control Afghanistan. Okay? Apart from that, all these 2021 schools in 20 provinces are in all the zones. So we're covering all parts of Afghanistan.

These are hybrid schools. Some of these schools operate in person so a girl can choose to walk to that school in a community. Sometimes it's a guest house, sometimes it's something someone's guest room. Sometimes it's a clinic's basement. Sometimes it's online, sometimes it's offline.

The Hila app that we have been working on, sometimes it's our AI tools, the well made and the Learn mate that is also working on low bandwidth. All of them as a holistic learning system is a space for girl to learn and grow. When I started this in Kandahar in 2021, I did this out of spot fight. I was mad at the Taliban. I was like, I own this land as much as you claim to own this land now.

2026, I'm happy to report, Minky, we just had our first batch of graduates. From grade 12 that enrolled in midwifery courses in Samangan and Kandahar, almost 15 girls were selected. They passed, passed all their tests, they have all their records. Their communities came to their graduation and now their communities are supporting not only their three year long course, but will support their internships, will make sure that they are kept safe. These are young girls in Afghanistan who are showing up to school every day.

That is hope for me. Now, there are times where I cry about all of this. Like day before yesterday when I got an email from One of the UN agencies that said, said, you should run your schools 21 hours per week in open, broad daylight. And I was like, interesting. Do you understand that Afghanistan is currently battling a ban on education?

We're not just a poor country, we're battling a ban and you're telling me to open schools in broad daylight? That's not how it works. So one thing I have to reiterate again, what Abdullah said is learning has to be holistic in Afghanistan. It has to focus on online, offline AI, in person, learning teachers, communities, parents, all of them have to come together for us to raise girls to be leaders, to be midwives, to be mental health practitioners, all those kinds of things. Now, apart from midwives, we have also been experimenting with mental health practitioners and curriculum.

And the good thing I'm happy to report again is we have almost 15 girls enrolled in our mental health course right now. That will end in the next two years and we will have 15 communities accessing therapists and counselors in Afghanistan in local languages. Why is it important? Because Afghanistan right now has the highest female suicide rate. Afghanistan is also the country with highest female depression and anxiety rates.

So we need to build within. And that's why the workforce that we are talking about has to be workforce that is able to access and unlock opportunities and work work opportunities within their own communities. Now, building on that Learn also is focusing on our own LLM. And we have been building this for almost four months now. Our first model was our Learn Meet.

And then now our second model is our well meet. If you go to our website, you'll find both of them. They're locally contextualized. They talk to you as if you're in Afghanistan and you're an Afghan girl who cannot take a walk outside. So they will not tell you to calm down and tell you a western practice.

They will talk to you from an Afghan context. And that is why our AI has to be locally rooted. The data has to come from the local communities and it has to be developed by the local communities and girls within Learn now, apart from all of these amazing things I really want to talk about one more important thing is that institutions, with their bureaucracy are destabilizing Afghanistan when they think about education from the lens of let's just run schools, bootstrap projects and just make sure as many kids can enroll and as much as many girls we can retain. No, Afghanistan is under a current ban. We need to raise leaders who are able to take over Afghanistan one day when we are able to restore democracy.

Apart from that, we need girls in robotics, we need girls in journalism. We need girls in all parts of our lives. And that is why all these big agencies who are not able to resolve education's crisis all over the world in the past few decades maybe should learn a thing or two from smaller organization who have been innovating under such drastic and harsh spaces like Afghanistan. So all I want to say is if a girl in Afghanistan is choosing to walk to a school in Samangan, Daikundi, Ghazni Kandahar if a teacher is choosing to teach in Afghanistan right now in any capacity, although constitutionally we don't have a constitution right now, they don't have a right, it's illegal. And I have had teachers arrested and tortured and imprisoned.

They're choosing that or all of that. It's our shared responsibility to make sure that every day when we wake up, we choose to fight for that. We choose to fight for the right to learn. We choose to fight for all the girls who are making that choice. And that's my message.

Thank you, Minky. Thank you.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [1:06:39]:

And just a quick question back to you. I asked the same question as I asked Abdullah, which is which UN agencies have the responsibility to support you and so which agencies are the ones that can learn from you? Because we obviously agree.

There was a Human Rights Watch report a number of years ago that had my favorite title. It was I don't need to have it in front of me. The title of the report was one day you'll be sick and I won't be a doctor. And so at the point where, you

know, this small organization is providing a very important bridge function in this interstitial period when the denial of the right to education is in its worst phase, what are the UN agencies that have the responsibility to support this effort and


Speaker 32 [1:07:35]:

how can we engage them? And how can the international community contribute to a safe and sustainable education? Because guest house education is not safe or sustainable. Thank you.


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [1:07:48]:

First of all, I read that report.

I loved that report. Second I think not just one UN agency like UNICEF or UNESCO. I think all UN agencies have to come to an understanding in Afghanistan that they've been working in Afghanistan, they have been working, implementing these models and to what use. There are multiple researches out there which proves that just putting a girl or a child in a school doesn't mean you're educating them. You have to go above and beyond.

You have to make sure that they stay in that school, that they learn in that school. And even before the fall of Afghanistan, it was very hard to focus on the quality of education. So I think UN at some point has to understand they need to come out of the bureaucracy shoes and they need to stay step into the innovation shoes. That's the first thing. And here's the thing.

Afghanistan is one of the most innovative countries when it comes to education. We are right now innovating with offline apps, with hybrid learning. There are literally packets being delivered in Afghanistan to people's homes and the kids are learning from those packets. That's innovation. So if Afghanistan's model is taken, unicef, UNESCO, undp, unhcr, because there are so many refugees returning into Afghanistan right now, if all of them come together and they're like, you know what, we're not going to treat that as a project.

We're going to invest in one thing that is going to be sustainable. We're going to make sure that the teachers that are teaching don't lose hope because they don't know where their next salary is coming from. They've built a sustainable fund. I think they might be able to solve Afghanistan's a lot of issues. Second thing I would definitely say is Afghanistan is a model that can be implemented into Yemen right now, into Syria, into Sudan, into Somalia very easily.

And we are right now working with Yemeni midwives and they are learning from us and we are learning from them. So all in all to say, I think I again and again say this is war shouldn't be fought on the bodies and the minds of young girls and women. And Afghan women have come together time and time again to prove that they are so capable of leading the country and educating those around them. And now they are doing that for their Yemeni sisters. So I think all these UN agencies should learn from that and support that.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [1:10:00]:

Thanks very much. And just a reminder also that many of the first or second generation refugees who left Afghanistan came back and helped to rebuild the country. So my question picks up on that theme for Zakiyah.

I wanted to ask, you know the. With many women athletes from Afghanistan, and some of them have had to flee persecution in situations of danger. They have rebuilt their lives outside the country, in France, in Australia and the United States, in Portugal, in many countries.

Do you see a future for sport for both grassroots sport, because you won't have Olympic elite sport or Paralympic elite sport without grassroots sport. So what is the future for sport for women and girls in Afghanistan? Can those leaders like you outside the country contribute to training and rebuilding sport inside the country now and in the future?


Refugee Paralympic Team · Para Taekwondo athlete · Zakiya Kuadati [1:11:11]:

Thank you.


Speaker 36 [1:11:47]:

So the important point is those who fled Afghanistan, particularly Afghan girls who invested in sport so they can collectively work to keep, you know, this culture of sport and also the expression for many women in Afghanistan, so they can collectively work to make sure that it's alive and inspire Afghan girls and women who don't have any, you know, access or support when it comes to sporting activities in Afghanistan.

So despite all those challenges, what she can observe, you know, Afghan girls have improved so much when it comes to sport, whether it's in basketball, whether it's in other sports. So that shows the determination of Afghan girls to, you know, keep this commitment alive to change the Afghan society in the long run.

So the important recommendations that she makes is how they can establish a virtual network through which women Afghan girls who participate in sport activities that they can collaborate and how they can address challenges back in Afghanistan.

Online.

And similar to other education platform, this group can also teach sports to Afghan girls online so that they can also continue participate in sport activities.

That.

And also Afghanistan Olympic Federation has not been so active and supportive. For example, she did not receive any support from them, but also they're not very active to support other Afghan women back in Afghanistan. So she want to encourage, you know, more active role from Afghanistan Olympic Federation.

So it's very heartbreaking that she's the only one and Paralympic from Afghanistan and majority of Afghan, they don't know about Paralympics. And despite that, because of war and conflict, 50% of Afghan society may experience handicap. And she wants to, you know, raise the awareness of people that, you know, such things exist and they can participate in future.

And the final message, she's very determined to ensure that there would be a future in which there is no gender discrimination, particularly when it comes to sports. And she's determined to keep alive the inspiration from sport within Afghan society, particularly like girls and women.


HRW · Moderator · Minky Warden [1:18:08]:

Yeah, thank you. Thanks very much. And just a reminder, because we were talking about the responsibility of very specific institutions.

So no female athlete has competed from Afghanistan, has represented the country from inside the country since August of 2021. And so the international sporting bodies, the IPC and the IOC have a clear responsibility to restore this right. So that is their.

That is their job. It is the job of the UN to make sure that the IOC is upholding its own Olympic charter in this respect. So thank you for your. For your courage.

And I think now we have time for questions, so we'll turn it over for questions. Thank you. Thank you. We have received some requests for the floor, but also once I invite the two speakers, then followed by I will open the floor, just please raise your hands and introduce yourself and ask you a question directly from our panelists. So the first speaker I received is Maryam.


Afghanistan [1:19:13]:

Ms. Mariam, please.


Wellesley Centers for Women · Maryam Hassan [1:19:23]:

Good morning. My name is Maryam Hassan and I am here on behalf of the Wellesley Centers for Women in Afghanistan. Today, women are banned from secondary and higher education, barred from most forms of employment, and restricted from their freedom of movement. In addition, they're also shut out of public spaces, including parks and sports facilities. These policies don't exist in isolation, but rather they reinforce one another.

And together they amount to the systemic removal of women from every dimension of public life. I want to be direct about something that doesn't get attention in these conversations. This is a generational cycle and will continue to be so unless meaningful action is taken. When a young girl loses her education and watches her mother go through the same loss and livelihood, she's learning that exclusion is permanent and opportunity is not meant for her. This is a mental health crisis unfolding on a massive scale, and it will deepen with every year that passes without intervention.

Prolonged exclusion from education, employment and social participation are all well documented drivers for depression, anxiety and other complex forms of trauma. Unfortunately, in most accountability frameworks, psychosocial harm remains merely an afterthought. If this Commission is serious about advancing access to justice and eliminating structural barriers, then our response to Afghanistan must treat psychosocial support as a pillar of accountability. We call on Member States to ensure that any framework addressing the situation in Afghanistan also integrates psychosocial support alongside legal accountability and restoration of education. In light of this, I would like to ask the commission, in what ways might Member States strengthen support systems for the mental well being of Afghan women and girls?


Afghanistan [1:21:00]:

Thank you. Thank you, Maryam. I will now give the floor to Ms. Soha and then we will take one more and then our panelists will respond.


Wellesley Centers for Women · Researcher · Soha Khan [1:21:30]:

All right. I would like to start by thanking the panel for this presentation. Very important discussion. My name is Soha Khan and I'm doing a research at the Wealthy center for Women examining how education disruptions in conflict regions reshape long term inequality. So we often frame Afghanistan's crisis as a national tragedy.

2.2 million girls are banned from education. But I believe we need to like view this and understand it as part of a global divergence. While the rest of the world is moving towards AI and digital economy, entire regions and affected by conflict are being pushed further behind and structurally. So when girls are removed from education they are not just like. It's not just their progress that's being delayed.

It literally locks societies out of future economic systems, technological participation in global decision making. So the consequence is not just gender injustice today, it is the very creation of a widening global knowledge divide where women in conflict zones are extorted from the very that will define power and opportunity in the coming decade. So from a justice perspective, this raises a deeper issue. If access to education determines who participates in the global economy, then education bans are the very human rights violations and they are the very mechanisms that entrench global inequality. So my question to the panel is how should international justice frameworks respond when education policies don't just violate rights, but also exclude entire generations of women from the future of work and global participation?


Afghanistan [1:22:57]:

Thank you.

Thank you. We will get one more and then. Yes, please, please introduce yourself and then


People Help · Sylvia [1:23:08]:

can you hear me? Hello, I'm Sylvia from Barcelona from People Help, an organization based in Barcelona in Spain. And we have been accompanying Afghan women refugees since 2021. We have a project with the seeking international protection. Also we have an education project and in Pakistan and now we are starting in Afghanistan and also like a legal advocacy project about the recognition of gender upper head.

But my question now is about the education is because we talk about the girls who are over 12 years old who of course they cannot go to school. And congratulations really to Pashtana, well to all of you. But we have known many Afghan women who are giving in person lessons in Afghanistan. And for us it's unbelievable and very admirable that they are risking their lives every day not to, to give, to teach the girls, but the families that we are in touch and we are helping to continue their education, they are very worried also about the primary school and the boys, also the girls and boys in primary school and of course in the high school because well, we don't know if the public, we don't know what to do about this project because we don't know if telling them to keep going to the public schools or if we should help them to go to a private Schools? No, what is best for them to get the best education and not being like getting like radicalized religious education, because we need that the men and the women are educated, get the education in the human rights and for the women, for men and for everybody.

So this is more or less my question. I'm sorry, because I'm a little nervous, but thank you.


Afghan Female Student Outreach · Director · Lucy Farris [1:25:25]:

Yeah. I'm Lucy Farris, Director of Afghan Female Student Outreach. We teach university classes and build a pathway forward for university women in Afghanistan. So my question to the panel generally, since we're here at the UN is what happens after. We've been going for three years now, ever since women were ejected from the universities in Afghanistan, which means that we have a number of women whose academic capacities, whose academic English, whose TOEFL scores have qualified them for full scholarships.

Unfortunately, the US and the UK have both closed their doors to Afghan women. But there are other English language universities around the world. The problem is, as I'm sure everyone on the panel knows, twofold, one, a scholarship does not cover the actual costs of attending the university, and university women in Afghanistan have essentially no funds of their own. And secondly, the visa process is extended, expensive, risky and often unattainable. And so I'm just wondering what we can do as essentially an international group through pressure, through advocacy, through to bring both universities and governments to the table to open up these possibilities for Afghan women who are poised to become the leaders of their country in the near future.


Afghanistan [1:27:07]:

And I think it's an urgent, it's an urgent question for a small number of students who could make an enormous difference to the Afghanistan of the future. Thank you. Thank you, Lucy. I will stop here and ask our panelists to respond. Maybe Fariba, you can respond to the first question that was mentioned and then followed by, I will ask Pashtana to answer to the last question, please.


Women Leaders of Tomorrow · Founder & Executive Director · Freba Rezi [1:27:31]:

Can I ask the last question about the scholarship? Because you wanted to answer the first question from that you wanted? Yes. Okay. So the first question was about global accountability and long term solution and what the world can do.

So I'm from Afghanistan. We have seen all the atrocities and all the challenges. Based on my experience, it looks like Afghanistan is a low priority for the international community. We are seen unimportant in many discussions and meetings. Therefore, the attention is, is drifting away from Afghanistan and Afghanistan issues, not knowing and understanding and remembering that Afghanistan issue is not just Afghanistan issue, this is a global issue because we are facing towards a very dangerous future where Afghanistan is becoming basically a field for young jihadists.

Remember 2025 years ago, Taliban were brainwashing young boys. Now those boys are men and now they're Taliban fighters. So it's very, very dangerous. What's happening right now with the current wars happening in Gaza, in Iran, in the region, it's definitely making it more difficult. And oftentimes I hear that.

How can we bring Afghanistan's attention to the world and vice versa, when there are competing priorities? Let's remember that Afghanistan is suffering under gender apartheid. It's one of its first kind that happening in the world. And when there's a gender apartheid in a country, there shouldn't be no competing priorities. There should be the priorities for the international community.

Because what is happening in Afghanistan right now, if the Taliban remain unchallenged and maintains its power and monopoly over violence and armed forces, we will see its aftermath in 2023 or 2024 and beyond simultaneously. We must not forget that the Taliban remains in power. They will become normalized, people will get desensitized to it and they will become the government of the country. And they will represent a country that not on behalf of the Afghans, not on behalf of the Afghan women, but on behalf of their own and also on behalf of their ideology. Let's also remember that sport is very important because sport is physical education and physical literacy, which are basic human rights.

Thank you.


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [1:30:24]:

If it's okay, I will touch on a few questions that I found relevant. The first one was mental health from Mariam, as I touched upon it is like I, when I read about that Afghanistan has the highest female suicide rate and that Afghanistan has the highest depression and anxiety rates, and me personally being diagnosed with complex ptsd, it's something personal to me. So when I'm working with my students, we have mental health circle, we have a teacher's emotional well being circle. And now that we are trying to work with our Yemeni sisters, we are also doing the similar thing. We're hoping to design a similar thing.

I don't know at this point if I'm very hopeful with international frameworks or the commissions. I feel like it's very bureaucratic. It's also very westernized in many ways and I don't think they understand sister or systems that are set for generations and centuries. So I think women time and time again have to come together, share tea, talk about their grievances and then tell each other it's going to be okay. But also, hopefully it's more trauma.

Informed counselors, therapists can inform it more. And we have more people who are educated with the context and that's one of the hope that we want to educate Afghan girls, especially learn. Afraid students with that context. Context. Moving on to the public schools for boys.

I think that's a great question. I have a very personal example. I grew up learning Pashto in a refugee camp in Pakistan. My father would send us books from Afghanistan, and I remember these books were commissioned in the US by the University of Nebraska. And all these books were gene for Jihad, shin for Shahid, which basically is like jihad, like the holy war or the holy fight against infidels.

And then Shahid is a martyr who's like, you know, fighting the infidels whatsoever. And I used to learn from those. And then I remember my dad would come back and I would ask him, I was like, so what does this mean? What does that mean? And my father would actively re.

Educate me on everything. He was like, this is just something that you should know that like, you know from your language. But he kept on brainwashing me. He kept on teaching me about the women of Afghanistan for the past three years, thousand years. All the amazing women from Gawar Shad be come to Roxana to Rabia Balkhi to Malalay Maivandi.

And he would tell me that these are the women you should look up to. So I didn't have to go around and watch Cinderella or Snow White or anything. And I think that's the history we should be teaching our boys. That's the history that should be taught anywhere about Afghanistan, which is we have fought injustice, illiteracy and unfair people. And we continue to do that in our formats.

And that should be applied to kids who go to public schools because there are no other resources. But families should take another step by educating them internally and help them educate them. Last but not the least was a question on hidden costs, which I think a lot of people completely ignore. It cost almost $1,500 for a girl to get a visa to Pakistan. Right now, it's impossible to get that.

It's a lot of money. So I think right now, now the most sensible thing to do is a access to education should visas. Education tickets should be handled by Muslim countries like Qatar, like Oman, like Bahrain, countries that have been involved in Afghanistan, countries that also call Taliban their brothers. I think they may be able to negotiate the access to higher education for young girls. I think that should be done more and more.


Afghanistan [1:33:53]:

Thank you. We will open one more round of questions and then we will. So let's start from right. You, miss, please introduce yourself and raise your question. Please be Specific.


Stand-up comedian; Content creator · Zar Kaibar [1:34:14]:

Okay. Hi, everyone. My name is Zar Kaibar. I am a refugee as well, but from Tajikistan. I am a stand up comedian and I am a content creator.

And I've been working for the past like two months with girls in Afghanistan and also schools, online schools in Afghanistan, all sorts of schools. I've created my own kind of makeshift school board with them, asking them what they need and helping them with getting any sort of funding and sponsorships for their events for all these things. I'm speaking with one school called School of Freedom and they are helping a lot of girls, ojec they're from Ottawa and they help girls in Afghanistan. But their main priority is to help girls in Afghanistan learn medical, medical procedures. Because right now a lot of women are actually not allowed to.

They're not allowed to see male doctors and a lot of them are suffering because they have to treat each other. But then they aren't getting trained to teach each other how to take care of one another. And it's, it's so heartbreaking. I'm also working with Alakine Foundation. They are, they are taking only.

They have about 49 students, but their program is very real. Like, it's really, really good. They're offering like scholarships afterwards, they're offering mental health support and they're offering accredited diplomas within their programs, which is great. I'm talking to these girls every day and I just, I just want to know, like, about the girls who don't have Mahrams. We're seeing Nouria, a young girl in Kabul.

She had to dress up as a boy so that she could provide for her family because they don't have Maharam. Mahram is a mela company and they don't have that. So these girls are left to fend for themselves. I also spoke with somebody who has, who spoke directly with the Taliban and they asked, they asked him what we should do to make the country better. And he said, I genuinely believe that we should put girls back into school.

And they said to him, I don't know which position this member is, but he said that they're using women's education as a bargaining chip for countries to recognize them as a government. What do you guys think about that? What is the hope for it? I don't, I just feel so hopeless. You know, I speak to these girls every single day and they're losing hope.

And I'm so grateful that you guys are here and we're all here to not forget about these women. So. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you.


Afghanistan [1:37:13]:

It was. Thank you very much and please.


Columbia University · Student · Behnous [1:37:22]:

Thank you so much for this meaningful event and I really enjoyed all the words that you guys shared and appreciated. My name is Behnous and I migrated a few years ago after the Talibans took over and now I'm a student at Columbia University. Firstly, I wanted to make a comment about the responsibilities people, especially international community carrying. I believe the international community has both an action and a responsibility toward Avalon girls and our generation. The action is to continue creating pathways for education, whether through scholarships, digital learning or innovative tools like the ones discussed today.

When girls cannot reach schools, the world must help bring learning to them. The responsibility is also to keep Afghan girls visible. Our voices and our rights should not disappear from global conversations. Education is not only about individual opportunity, it is about the future of an entire society. And supporting Afghan girls today means investing in the future of Africa Afghanistan tomorrow.

My second comment about is about the question of what does Women's History Month means to Afghan girls back home and to me as an Afghan girl going to college here. Women's History Month is usually a time to celebrate progress and achievements of women, incredible women. But for Avon girls back home, it's it is also a painful reminder of what has been taken away from them. Education, freedom and the chance to build their future or any other opportunities that every human being deserves. As an student now studying at Columbia University, I carry both resilience with me and I have the privilege of the learning, speaking and being in spaces like this.

While many girls my age, my generation in Afghanistan are banned from classrooms and it is really really painful to even mention it and talk about it. That is why conversations like this about expanding education, including through technology and new tools like AI are so important. And Women's History Month should not only be about remembering the past and it should also be about ensuring that Afghan girls are not arrest from the future. And we keep thinking about them. I have a question and just want to know your thoughts on it.

How can the international community ensure that global conversations about women's rights and education translate into real support and learning opportunities for Afghan girls, Especially when the education system is increasingly restricted and controlled. Because recognizing women's history should also mean protecting the future of girls who still hope to learn. Thank you and madam, you please please.


Afghanistan [1:40:55]:

Please press the button.


Speaker 53 [1:40:57]:

Just want to congratulate the panel and I liked Adira Ma' am's that world that the space is a pay is a place for the girl or the woman and the fourth Pashana ma' am has said about the education I really can't congratulate her because working in such environment of the antiseptory people and who are not going to accept us as a woman or the various laws what are being And I just want to put up one thing that for the education you have started started mental health and depression. So one of my suggestion for this let's start like I run a movement in India. I am from India. I run a movement to making girl child psychologically strong.

So if we started the girls from the school age to be strong. So we will not have that challenges of the mental health or the depression. So for this thing, we are having a small special this thing we will we are ready to share our syllabus to you and if you want some guide online. So our expertise will give free of cost all this education to you. Thank you, ma'.


Afghanistan [1:42:20]:

Am. And Ms. Haider, please.

Okay, you can go ahead. I will translate the question. Maybe I'm sure they will not, but maybe for the audience. Okay.

Okay. Please go ahead.


Ms. Haider [1:42:58]:

Thank.

You.

Embrace.


Afghanistan [1:45:11]:

Thank you. Basically it was just a comment regarding to just reaffirm what Ms. Khudaidad mentioned about the role of sports. And she just want she talked that she's coming from the sports background and she fully agrees with what she highlighted during her remarks. Thank you for that. Just one last question.

Question maybe Ms. Sadaf? Yes, please me. Is it working? Yeah. Great.


Former national team player · Sasha Rezai [1:45:42]:

So I'm Sasha Rezai. I'm former member of Afghanistan national soccer team. In 2021, I was forced to leave Afghanistan and we were, I and my teammate, we were evacuated to Portugal and we are refugee there. So as you guys know, you all say that when we leave a girl from Afghanistan, when they leave the country country they have responsibility to give back to the country and to the goals that they left behind. My friends, I mean, at least I feel that responsibility and my teammates.

So in Portugal, we built in the IFC and we presented Afghanistan in two very big international championship like Sweden got your cup. And in Denmark and Danaka for the first time. And after that, in 2024, I got a scholarship and came to us to finished my high school here. And right now I have two questions from you, from all of you. The first one is US banned Afghan giving visa to Afghans, even student visa, including girls and boys.

And last week, UK also banned giving visa to Afghan students, even girls. And for me as a refugee, the first option that I had to continue my college in my university was in US and right now I don't have that option anymore. And I'm just here to just finish my high school. And then second option for me was like uk and right now I cannot also apply there because like they just banned giving visa to me. And for someone that is coming from a refugee background and war, it's so hard to, you know, find opportunity, find a scholarship and like, you know, to study and like, you know, to become someone.

So how can we force these governments, like, to at least secure opportunity and scholarship and like the visa for the girls, at least for the girls, you know, okay, boys, you know, they have also rights to study. But I'm sure. But like the girls are even banned from the, you know, from everything in Afghanistan. And the second one is like in my high school, I started my project called Kick for Joy, which is like clicking soccer balls and sending back to Afghanistan and distributing between the kids. As someone who's been affected by the war and also grew up in the war, I know how important for children to play sport.

How can people like me in my age, I'm 19 years old right now, how can I get connection and like, you know, have and receive the support to, you know, to do more? Because I know that like I'm being affected. I know there's solution, but like, you know, how we can have and secure that path between the young leaders and like the organization who want to support them. Thank you.


Afghanistan [1:48:23]:

I know there are a lot of requests.

Thank you very much. I may request. Please be specific and short to your question.


Afghanistan Youth Network for Peace · Founder · Sami Ullafate [1:48:44]:

Absolutely, for sure. My name is Sami Ullafate and I am the founder of Afghanistan Youth Network for Peace, a youth lead organization working to promote peace, education and opportunities for young people in Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has a very young population and millions of young people are growing up hoping for stability and opportunity. When girls are unable to continue their education, it affects not only them and their family, but the future of entire nation.

Afghanistan is also a country of many communities, Pashtuns, Hazaras, Tajiks, Uzbeks and others who have shared the same lands cultures for generations. Our strength has always come from our diversity. And today my question is to the panel. How can the international community partner with youth lead organizations like the Afghanistan Youth Network for Peace to better support African youth and help bring their voices to international platforms and global discussions. Thank you.


Afghanistan [1:50:02]:

Thank you. I appreciate Voices of Maine, particularly Afghan men here. I'm glad that you are here and also I'll invite another colleague.


Speaker 61 [1:50:25]:

Interestingly, the same question which I was supposed to ask, asked by the sister and I will just add on that if Taliban is not allowing ideologically to get the education. And the similar thing is the from the western country like she mentioned that many Afghans get the scholarship of achieving scholarship and one of the prestigious scholarship that they get. But unfortunately UK is not giving them the visa. And what is the other restriction from the western country that they are not allowing on the ban that they are not allowed to get education? One is the ideological of the Taliban and one is the western part that they should not be coming to the UK.

And we know that all the dignitaries, especially the Afghan panelists, they are in one way, other way they have the avail the opportunity to become the Fulbright Scholar.1 they were and they were Shivner. If we didn't get this such opportunities definitely we will not create cannot produce the future leader like you people are representing Afghanistan what role you can play in this area to get the visa for. Especially the Afghan people who are getting who want to further their education in higher studies. Thank you so much. Thank you.


Afghanistan [1:51:46]:

Very important question. I thank all for the questions. I will just go and to be fair with my our panelists, I will ask Mr. Azizi to please respond to the question.


Afghanistan Policy Lab · Affiliate · Abdullah Azizi [1:52:03]:

Maybe I can summarize I think from the questions what I got there is so much focus on international community, how they can influence the situation that we encounter in Afghanistan. So I have background in development, so I'm not very optimistic about that approach unless change happen within the Afghan society. So of course we can lobby for visas for everything. But not all Afghans can have that opportunity to travel and obtain education in the US or in the Europe. But then what about millions of Afghans that they're still there?

I think we need to refocus our position to work within the society. That how we can empower grassroots level, both men and women so that they can bring the change which is more sustainable. So if we don't like bring the change in rural areas, we cannot change anything. Like currently those who have the power, they are coming from rural areas. So that's how, you know, tanks work in rural areas.

But how we can change it it's through good education, through empowering communities at the grassroots level. But everything has to be linked to economic development. So if a household, they do not have enough money to send their kids to school, they cannot experience that change if they don't have money to buy a TV to see the world. Change cannot happen. So change has to happen from within, from outside.

We had this 20 years of efforts which ultimately failed. So I think that's one of my observation and the other thing is that how we can also push more Gulf states and other countries to push Talibans to change their behavior. I think they can play a major role when it comes to the major scholars to issue footwear regarding, you know, education of Afghan women and girls. That could play a really important role. But everything has to be backlink to, you know, how we can bring the change from within, not from the outside.

And when you push something from outside in a very conservative society, it backfires virus. But if we are able to change our approach and then we convince people this change would lead to a better society, I hope they would accept it.


Speaker 64 [1:55:04]:

Thank you so much, Mr. Azizi. And maybe Pashtana, please, if you can answer the questions that you wanted.


Learn Afghanistan · Founder · Pashtana Durrani [1:55:12]:

Thank you, Ambassador. My answer would be to you, Zara. I watched your video, I think yesterday where you were giving a girl a lesson, I think in Afghanistan and mid lesson she said that she lost her brother post 2021 in a suicide bombing.

And thank you so much for saying that. Yes, education has been used as a recognition chip by the Taliban. I want to highlight that one thing where the Taliban have been claiming for the past four years that Afghanistan is peaceful. Suicide bombings are still happening. And I think people like you who are still highlighting those realities of Afghanistan.

Peace in Afghanistan is not without women, but also there is a real threat within Afghanistan where suicide bombings are happening on daily basis. Coming to your second part of your question, which is are they using this as something for recognition? Of course they are. But also the point is why are we letting them do that? Why are we letting them walk away with this?

That is the most important thing. And I think that's where people like us, people with a lot of big platforms should be holding them accountable. A small that video reinstated that form of accountability where a lot of people who are from Afghanistan have been saying it, but someone else who has a bigger platform has highlighted it. Now it's more believable. Now it's more accessible.

Now a lot of people are hearing that. So I just wanted to make sure that that is recognized. Moving on to the visa problems, I think it's also very important to understand that the Taliban have a Qatar office. Afghans don't have an office. Our embassies are closing.

We don't have access to passports. I have to travel on an expired passport while the Taliban have special diplomatic passports. I think it's time the Western world, the Muslim world open an office for Afghans, for teenagers who are seeking passports and visas. That is an access to opportunity for people who really want to work on Afghanistan, but have to do it clandestine. I don't have to run schools in Afghanistan clandestine.

I want to be home in Kandar and just going about my day and having my pomegranates and that's fine. But we can't have that reality. So I think it's time that the world comes to one understanding. We need to open an office that is home to Afghans who are in exile who are right now struggling with visa problems and other Muslim countries and Western countries who in the past have used Afghanistan as a poverty porn. For now, to help actual Afghans.

That has to be the reality of it. And then last but not the least, I think to your question, when we're talking about Women History Month, we should also remember that women should be erased from the future. I think the one most important thing is you're just telling me that you're an undergrad and you're studying, studying neuroscience. She is a teenager and she's completing her education. I think every day when you show up to school, you're making sure that Afghans are not erased from the future.

Afghan girls are not erased from the future. And within Afghanistan, girls are doing the same thing. I know it's not uniform. I know it's not the easiest thing to do. I know we have families back home.

I know we have families stuck in Iran and Pakistan. I know we all are going through a trauma right now, but the one thing that we keep on going is showing up to these places, putting it together, asking those tough questions, answering those tough questions, and being loud and proud about Afghanistan and being an Afghan woman about it. So I think those are ways to show up. Thank you.


Afghanistan [1:58:40]:

Thank you very much. Thank you. I think we come to the end of our side event and I would like to take this opportunity once again to, first of all, I would like to sincerely thank our panelists for their very insightful presentations and discussions and also our great moderator for wonderfully managing the moderation. Let's give a round of applause to our panelists. And last but not least, I would like to thank our co organizers and co sponsors, Afghanistan Policy Lab at Princeton University, Wellesley center for Women.

And also the women leaders of tomorrow for putting this together. And I thank all of you for your time for being with us here. And we. I don't want to recap what what was said because it was very much elaborate. And I just want to remind you that look at when I see as an Afghan that our Afghan women leaders are taking stages in the world in such a platform, the UN and this is a pride.

And that's why we are emphasizing on the role of education. And when I see Afghan youth representatives or Afghan men, Afghan women or Afghan girls who are studying in different universities here and Afghan sports and athletes, the medal winners for Afghanistan, these are the stages strength of our country, our people. And that's why we are trying to continue our resistance against this ban on education, against this regime. The Taliban and their. I just want to highlight one point that it was mentioned about the Sharia law.

The Sharia law or the Islamic values are completely different from the Taliban's policies. What the Taliban are doing is not in line with Sharia law. We as Muslims, we Afghans completely disagree with the interpretation of the Taliban, the rigid and extreme interpretation. Even the Islamic OIC countries have sent delegations and asked them that what they are doing is not in line with Islamic values. But unfortunately, this is what the Taliban mindset is and what they think and that's what they want to implement on the afghan people, the 40 million of afghan.

So thank you. Thank you again. And I know you are already. You have been here for a long time. Thank you so much.

And just one reminder, tomorrow we will have another side, even on Access to education with another.

Sorry, it's Access to Justice. Thank you. Access to Justice. Tomorrow it is Conference Room 1. And we will be looking forward to having another round of Afghan scholars and panelists, women.

They will be talking about the Access to justice. And we really appreciate if you can join us tomorrow. Thank you so much and have a wonderful day.