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Women's silent protest in order to gain education 

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Women's silent protest in order to gain education 

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About a ¨dozen women with black burqas¨ waited at the ¨Gulbahar shopping mall¨ as an act of protesting. The women were banned from the government to protest , for if they raise their voice they would ¨scotch tape their mouths¨ in order to symbolize silence. In order to prove that they are still capable of gaining their rights , the women were ¨marching with placards¨ , creating an impact on the society while remaining silenced. Thus , this was called the silent protest.

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A small group of women gathered in Kabul on Sunday for a "silent protest" against the interim Taliban administration's decision permitting only boys and male teachers to resume their educational activities in Afghanistan.

Although it failed to get much public attention, women managed to register their disapproval of the Taliban decision before representatives from certain international media outlets in the capital city.

All Afghan schools and Islamic seminaries for boys reopened as of Saturday under a Taliban announcement, saying: "All male teachers and students must attend their educational institutions."

In the afternoon, about a dozen women, all dressed in black burqas, assembled at Gulbahar Shopping Mall in the city center and waited for the rally to be organized.

Despite the interim Taliban's administration's ban on unauthorized rallies, organizers Shakiba Tamkin and Joliya Farisi were seen coordinating everything, even putting black scotch tape on the mouths of other women to imply that they are not mute and can raise their voices.

The Taliban said on Sept. 9 that prior approval from the interim Justice Ministry is required before holding any protest marches.

Tamkin told Anadolu Agency that some women had proceeded to acquire authorization for the protest march, but they failed to get it.

Still, about two dozen women began marching with placards bearing slogans in support of girls' education and women's rights.

Several Taliban security vehicles passed close by the marchers, but they paid little attention.

"This is not Afghanistan 20 years ago ... things have changed," a teen girl who came to the mall with her mother said.

"We are digitally connected to the rest of the world, and we are aware of our rights," she stated, without revealing her identity but expressing her support for the rally participants.

"The Taliban administration would allow the young girls to study as it is not possible to place a ban on their education right now," said Mohammad Mukhtar, a schoolteacher who also came for shopping with his family.

Small groups of women organized rallies in three cities, including Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif, and Kabul, since the Taliban took control of Kabul on Aug. 15, demanding that their rights be preserved.

Anadolu Agency website contains only a portion of the news stories offered to subscribers in the AA News Broadcasting System (HAS), and in summarized form. Please contact us for subscription options.

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Women stage 'silent protest' in support of girls' education in Afghanistan

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A small group of women gathered in Kabul on Sunday for a "silent protest" against the interim Taliban administration's decision permitting only boys and male teachers to resume their educational activities in Afghanistan. Although it failed to get much public attention, women managed to register their disapproval of the Taliban decision before representatives from certain international media outlets in the capital city.

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Malala's protest to resume girl's education after the Taliban 

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Malala's protest to resume girl's education after the Taliban 

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After the Taliban , the girls in Afghanistan were not permitted to return to school to continue their studies. Malala protested with the government officials proving that not allowing girls to return to school is not justice through her speeches and interviews. Her main goal was to let every girl receive ¨12 years of free , safe [and] quality education¨ Due to her protesting , the girls were allowed to re - enter to school.

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More than 260 million children, adolescents and youth are out of school around the world, according to the United Nations. Despite some progress in achieving gender equality in the world's poorest countries, far more girls than boys still do not have access to a quality education,

Research has shown that educating girls, in particular, has a 'multiplier effect'. Educated girls are more likely to marry later and have fewer children, who in turn will be more likely to survive and to be better nourished and educated. Educated women are more productive at home and better paid in the workplace, and more able to participate in social, economic and political decision-making.

Earlier this year, UN Secretary-General António Guterres designated education activist and Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai as a UN Messenger of Peace with a special focus on girls' education. Ms. Yousafzai began speaking out for girls' education at the age of 11 in her native Pakistan. After surviving an assassination attempt by the Taliban in 2012, she co-founded the Malala Fund with her father Ziauddin to champion every girl's right to 12 years of free, safe, quality education.
UN News: Tell us more about the new initiative the Malala Fund is carrying out to help girls education in a number of countries.
Malala Yousafzai: The Malala Fund started the Gulmakai Network, and the goal of this mission is to empower local leaders and some local activists. So we support them and we are already working in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and also the Syrian refugee areas. So we want to increase that investment and also support local advocates, as well as local girl advocates. So for that we have $3 million and we want to expand that group, redouble our efforts, and make sure we can give to as many local activists as we can because they are the real change-makers in their community, and when we empower them, through them, we can bring change.

VIDEO: Malala Yousafzai discusses her push for global education, her motivations in continuing her campaigns, and how she came to be the person she is.
UN News: Specifically, how would you like to see this money used?
Malala Yousafzai: We will invest in local leaders and local activists. These local activists speak out, locally, nationally; they campaign for girls' education. For example, in Nigeria, our activists, together with the Malala Fund, campaigned to ensure that the Nigerian Government increased education from 9 years to 12 years. So we succeeded in that campaign and it became part of the law. We are doing similar campaigning in Pakistan and Afghanistan. We are also including teachers' training. We are also including empowering others girls and helping them so they can also talk to leaders. It also includes e-learning and other improvements in the quality of education. So it's a vast project that covers many areas but our main goal is to empower local leaders.
UN News: What are some of the things you observed in your efforts to promote girls' education during your travels?
Malala Yousafzai: So this year I went on a Girl Power trip and I went to America, Canada, then Nigeria, Iraq, and Mexico, and in these places I met amazing and incredible girls and I heard their inspiring stories. In Iraq, I met a girl called Najla. She was 14 years old when she was wearing her wedding dress and she took off her high heels and she escaped from her wedding. She ran away. And later on, her village was captured by the extremist ISIS and she was actually attacked but she did not stop. She is still continuing her education, speaking out... and she wants to be a journalist.

My goal is very clear, and that is to continue fighting for girls' education, their empowerment, their rights - Malala Yousafzai

These are the stories that inspire me but my aim is to bring these stories into a global platform like the UN and allow these girls to meet their country leaders and local leaders so their voices can be raised.
UN News: You also brought a young woman from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What was her story? What made you bring her to the UN to speak to world leaders?
Malala Yousafzai: So in Lancaster, in America, I met this young girl, and I think she did not know what my story was but she was telling me her story. She really inspired me because she went through a lot of difficulties in her country, [DR] Congo, and how she saw brutalities in front of her eyes. Her family members were killed. She has seen worse than what we can ever imagine but she resisted all those conflicts, all those wars that she saw. And now she is in the US, she is fighting every day. She's achieving her dreams to be a nurse, and her name is Marie Claire. And I am really proud of her, and I am there to support her so she can achieve her dreams but also so she can speak for other girls like her.
UN News: What would you say is your key message to world leaders?
Malala Yousafzai: I'm just reminding them of their responsibilities - that they are holding the positions in which they are responsible for their people and for the future generation. I remind them that they have to increase investment towards schooling, towards quality education, otherwise we would lose these future generations. This would impact not just the children, not just the girls, but all of us. So we have to invest towards the 130 million girls who are out of school, we have to support them, we have to stand with them, and make changes in the law and also take action.

UN News: What can men do to help achieve education for girls?
Malala Yousafzai: Well I think men have to do a lot. My father is an inspiration because his five sisters could not go to school. So, he decided he would allow his own daughter to go to school, to get her education, and then to raise her voice. When we started campaigning in Swat Valley, when terrorism started and girl's education was banned, there were many other girls who wanted to speak out but their parents, their brothers did not allow them. My father was the one who did not stop me.

We have to believe in our sisters, in our daughters and allow them to be who they want to be - Malala Yousafzai

We have to believe in girls, we have to believe in our sisters, in our daughters and allow them to be who they want to be. As my father says, you do not have to do something, just do not clip their wings, just let them fly and let them achieve their dreams. So men have to come forward, they have to support women. It's better for the whole economy, better for each and every one of us. It will help the economy to grow even faster, it will improve the standards of living of each and every one of us, it would improve health. It also benefits the children because when women are educated, they are more likely to take care of their children, and their education, and their future.
UN News: How do you relate to your parents and brothers, and manage to have a little bit of fun in the midst of all the things you're doing?
Malala Yousafzai: So I'm grateful that I have such a beautiful family. Both of my parents have supported me and always stand with me, and for them I'm just their daughter. It's just like when other parents have a daughter, they love her, they take care of her. But then I have two younger brothers, and as usual brothers are cheeky ... We still fight, we still argue. My brothers, they just don't care what awards I'm winning or who I am or if I am ambassador or something, or UN Messenger of Peace.
UN News: When you became the youngest winner of the Nobel Prize, what did your brothers say to you?
Malala Yousafzai: So when I won the Nobel Peace Prize and I came back to the hotel where we were staying, my little brother started saying: 'Look you have won the Nobel Peace Prize but it does not mean you become a bossy sister.' They want to me be just as normal as I was.
UN News: You're getting ready to go to Oxford University. Tell us about that.

I want to help as many girls as I can to make sure they get quality education and achieve their dreams - Malala Yousafzai

Malala Yousafzai: So I always wanted to get quality education, to go to a good university, it was my dream, and now that dream has come true and I am going to Oxford. I really worked hard for it ... And I was so happy when I received the offer. I'm excited to meet new people, to make friends, to learn. It is a great place of learning. I also want to enjoy a bit as well, to have some time with friends, and just to live like a normal student.
UN News: What are you hoping to be 5, 10 years from now, after Oxford?
Malala Yousafzai: It's hard to say what I want to be in the coming 10, 20 years because my mission and my goal is very clear, and that is to continue fighting for girls' education, their empowerment, their rights. In that I will continue my journey. But in the coming years, I want to complete my education. I want to continue working on education. I want to empower more young girls like me so that it's not just about one girl speaking out but we have hundreds and thousands of girls speaking out. We give them a voice. We give them a platform. Once you encourage them, once you tell them that your voice can change the world, then they can do it, they can come forward and speak out for themselves.
UN News: Maybe you'll be UN Secretary-General?
Malala Yousafzai: I'm not sure about that.

UN News: What would you tell a young girl of eight or nine to inspire her to keep rising like you?
Malala Yousafzai: So I started speaking out when I was only 11 years old, and I did not know if my voice would have any impact or not. But when I got attacked I realized that my voice was powerful, and it did reach to those people, and they were scared of my voice. So believe in your voice, believe in yourself, and always follow your dreams. Because especially young girls, they dream big but as they grow older they start underestimating themselves, they do not believe in themselves, they don't dream big. So I would ask all young girls to dream big, as big as you can, and just follow your dreams and you can do anything.
UN News: You have shown tremendous courage, resilience. What within you gives you that power?
Malala Yousafzai: I have seen a lot in my life from terrorism, extremism, to then being attacked. And I was at the point where I had to make a decision [about] whether I want to continue my campaign for girls' education or not. And I've been away from my home in Pakistan for a long time. So going through all these situations in my life, I've learnt that, now surviving that attack, this life is for a purpose and that is for the education of children. It's only 70, 80 years that we live, and why not live it for a good purpose? Why not live it for a service that can help humanity, that can help the world. So I want to help as many girls as I can, to make sure they get quality education and achieve their dreams.

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INTERVIEW: In fighting for girls' education, UN advocate Malala Yousafzai finds her purpose

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In September, the Malala Fund started the Gulmakai Network to support the work of education champions in developing countries and speed up progress towards girls' secondary education around the world.

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Afghan High School girls protesting for their own education 

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Afghan High School girls protesting for their own education 

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The girls ¨gathered¨ and formulated a ¨rally¨ in order for their education rights. Since they had fear of the Taliban, the girl's main focus was to let there local society to understand their issue. The were not hoping higher officials to take action but rather more powerful people in their community that can take a stand against the government for them.

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Afghan high school girls protest Taliban for barring their education

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As young girls demand right to school, professional women express fear for their future as the new Afghan rulers take a host of measures to keep them from offices they previously ran or worked at.

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¨LetGirlsLearn¨ program is supported by Michelle Obama

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¨LetGirlsLearn¨ program is supported by Michelle Obama

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In this video , Michelle Obama talks about the program ¨Let girls learn¨ , this program is an effective way to make and impact on the girl´s education in poor countries , such as Afghanistan , to promote their further education. This is a unique way to gain rights.

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Malala explains why it is key for girls to gain and education , an the barriers that are not allowing that right to the girls. She shows the advantages that occur due to the girls getting an education and she promotes the idea through television. This promotion is another way of protest for it encourages change in society and may cause a realisation for the government.

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Ms. Mohammed was speaking during a panel discussion on supporting a future for girls' education in Afghanistan, held on the margins of the UN General Assembly.

Prominent women advocates from Afghanistan and the international community also participated in the discussion, held both online and in person, and moderated by BBC correspondent Laura Trevelyan from UN Headquarters in New York.

'Front and centre'

Asked if international aid to Afghanistan could be conditional on education for women and girls, Ms. Mohammed responded "absolutely", stating that the issue "continues to remain upfront" in ongoing discussions with the de facto authorities.
"This is where we have to have resolve: that recognition comes with your ability to be part of a global family. That has a certain set of values and rights that must be adhered to. And education is up front and centre, especially for girls and for women."
The deputy UN chief urged the international community to draw on Afghan women's expertise and support them in preventing a reversal of two decades of gains in girls' education.

A 'zero condition'

Ms. Mohammed also reminded Afghan women that the UN is still on the ground, delivering for the people.

"You can be assured that we will continue to amplify your voices and make it a zero condition that girls must have an education before the recognition of any Government that comes in," she said.

Education is 'everything'

The Taliban seized power in August and recently confirmed that while secondary schools were reopening, only boys would be returning to the classroom. Women teachers in the country are also unable to return to work.

This week, the administration's spokesperson said a "safe learning environment" would need to be established before girls could go back to high school, according to media reports.

For engineer Somaya Faruqi, captain of the Afghan girls' robotics team that has competed worldwide, education means "everything".

"My generation grew up with a dream: achieving great things for our country by pursuing an education. The world will have everything to gain by standing with us," said Ms. Faruqi, who left Afghanistan in the wake of the takeover.

Education is both a right and an investment in a country's future, said Henrietta Fore, Executive Director of the UN Children's Fund, UNICEF.

'Important moment'

Prior to the Taliban takeover, UNICEF was operating in areas of Afghanistan under the group's control. She said the agency learned that many Taliban members believed education was important for their boys and girls.

Even though UNICEF tripled the number of schools open in Afghanistan, with 10 million children attending, four million of them girls, the country was already falling behind in educational provision. COVID-19 has further impacted progress.

"Girls and boys in many of the provinces are starting to return to school, but we are not seeing the girls returning to secondary school," said Ms. Fore.

"So, this is a real important moment for the de-facto authorities to be thinking about in every region, in every rural village: how to get the children - all the children, girls and boys - to school."

Both Ms. Fore and the UN Deputy Secretary-General spoke of the promise of digital technology and distance learning as a solution for expanding educational opportunities.

"Out in the rural communities, there is skills-building and there are community-based programmes, and we can do more with distance education and remote learning," the UNICEF chief said. "We need to have women teachers going back to schools, and we need more women teachers."

No compromises on women's rights

Nobel Peace Prize laureate and UN Messenger of Peace, Malala Yousafzai, famously survived a Taliban assassination attempt while a teenager campaigning for girls' education in her native Pakistan.

Ms. Yousafzai feared the return of atrocities targeting women, as well as terrorism and extremism, both in Afghanistan and the region, and urged the international community to ensure women's rights are upheld.

" We cannot make compromises on the protection of women's rights and on the protection of human dignity. This is a commitment that the UN has made, that they are there to work for the protection of human dignity," she said.
"So now is the time that we stick to that commitment and ensure that their rights in government are protected. And one of those important rights is the right to education."
'Listen to the people'

Fawzia Koofi, Afghanistan's first woman Deputy Speaker of Parliament, was also the first girl in her family to go to school.

She believes other predominantly Muslim countries in the region could press the Taliban on girls' education, because what is happening in Afghanistan differs from the rest of the Islamic world.

"Within the Taliban there might be individuals who have a different interpretation of Islamic principles, or even a self-made interpretation, which cannot become part of the government's policy," said Ms. Koofi.

"When they were fighting, probably they had a different policy. But when they are in the government, they have to listen to the people of Afghanistan."

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Afghanistan: Girls' education must be a given, urges deputy UN chief

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Ms. Mohammed was speaking during a panel discussion on supporting a future for girls' education in Afghanistan, held on the margins of the UN General Assembly. Prominent women advocates from Afghanistan and the international community also participated in the discussion, held both online and in person, and moderated by BBC correspondent Laura Trevelyan from UN Headquarters in New York.

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The unison of different families to change the same cause 

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The unison of different families to change the same cause 

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The different families in Afghanistan , work together like allies in order to cause change in their local community. They all realise they are all facing the same issue and for a solution , they must all face the problem together. This protest strategy , is:  by having a larger quantity of members , there is bigger the impact and change that occurs.

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As Taliban robs Afghan women and girls of work, school and safety, the most vulnerable “have nowhere to go”

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Vulnerable women who’d been protected by the previous government from their own families now “have nowhere to go.” For some, it’s probably already too late.

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The struggles that girl's face which causes them to not gain an education

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The struggles that girl's face which causes them to not gain an education

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This article shows the struggles that children face in poor countries which results in them not going to school and not getting a good career

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7 Obstacles to Girls’ Education and How to Overcome Them

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Girls’ education is threatened by obstacles including child marriage, poverty and period stigma. Keeping girls in school supports economic growth and more.

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This is important because it is what shows that many support the right to study in general. These many people supporting this movement , shows that it is a change that needs to occur in the world. This is important to my project because it proves that not only families who suffered wants education for children , but people that are wealthy also want the same thing , this proves to me that no matter what the poverty level , it is an important issue to be resolved - for all support the movement to end it.

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Seven celebrities who really care about education

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More celebrities are taking time to get involved in humanitarian projects - and many of them are focusing on the importance of education at home and abroad.

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One of the major topics that are mentioned in my article  is the inequality that the government shows.  The politicians close the education of ¨grades seven and up¨ for girls and only  ¨Re- open schools only for boys¨. This shows that the government only encourages and supports the education  of men and encourages the service  of women.  This also shows that the government wants the girls to get married because they do not encourage school for grade seven and older.  The government , in the process of persuading families to encourage their daughters to stay home ,  ¨ ban education for girls past primary schools¨ which results in the girls thinking ¨[they] don’t have a future¨. This shows that the government is not only trying to not encourage girls to stay home by  not pursuing an education , they are also highly encouraging girls to not attend school at all. With the girls not being able to attend school, they have the feeling that they will not fulfill their dreams causing them to not have the meaning of life they have dreamt of.

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This talks about peace treaty between the Taliban and the United States , this shows that this treaty is what made conditions in Afghanistan better than before. One of the major things that it improved is women's rights. Along with women's rights , it specifically supported education for women in the country due to the connection with the united states.

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This is a moment of both fear and hope for Afghan women - and an urgent time for the world to support their hard-won rights. The Feb. 29 deal between the US and the Taliban could pave the way for a peace that Afghans desperately seek. But there are huge risks for women's rights in this process.

Women have suffered deeply during Afghanistan's 40 years of war, and they desperately long for peace. They have also fought ferociously for equality in the years since the fall of the Taliban government and have made great progress. Today there are women ministers and governors and judges and police and soldiers, and Afghanistan's parliament has a higher percentage of women than does the US Congress.

But Afghan women's rights activists have faced resistance from the Afghan government - and lack of support from international donors - as they fought for their rightful place at the negotiating table for peace talks. This exclusion, combined with the Taliban's relentless discrimination against women and girls, increases fears that women's rights could easily be a casualty of this process.

The US-Taliban deal is focused on foreign troop withdrawal and preventing Taliban support for international terrorism attacks. It also triggers "intra-Afghan" talks between the Taliban, the Afghan government, and other factions, which are slated to start March 10. But women's rights were not included in the Feb. 29 deal. Zalmay Khalilzad, the lead US envoy to the talks, repeatedly said that women's rights - and other issues relating to human rights, political structures and power sharing - should be resolved through the subsequent intra-Afghan talks. This has been a source of frustration to activists.

The Taliban remain deeply misogynistic. Their 1996 to 2001 regime was notorious for denying women and girls access to education, employment, freedom of movement and health care, and subjecting them to violence including public lashing or execution by stoning. Taliban rhetoric and conduct has moderated somewhat in subsequent years, with some Taliban commanders permitting girls to attend primary schools, typically in response to community pressure. But the Taliban also continue to carry out violent attacks against girls' schools and block women and girls from exercising many of their basic rights, and remain deeply opposed to gender equality.

In February, a Taliban leader wrote, "[W]e together will find a way to build an Islamic system in which all Afghans have equal rights, where the rights of women that are granted by Islam - from the right to education to the right to work - are protected." Skeptics noted the comma separating women from equal rights, and that from 1996 to 2001 the Taliban also argued that women were enjoying all rights "granted by Islam."

The Afghan government has been an unreliable supporter - and sometimes even an enemy - of women's rights. The administrations of both Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani have frequently brushed aside women's rights. Both have mostly rebuffed activists' demands for women to have full participation in the peace process, as provided under United Nations Security Council Resolution 1325. Foreign donors have been more willing to engage in photo ops and grant agreements than to expend political capital to press for Afghan women to be in the room, at the table, during negotiations.

Lack of clarity about the intra-Afghan talks and the designated negotiators has further heightened fears about the implications for women's rights. Political infighting following the disputed Afghan presidential election has delayed the appointment of the government negotiation team. Pressure to divvy up these roles among power brokers threatens to squeeze women out. The absence of clear information about what country will host the talks and who will facilitate them prevents women's rights activists from lobbying for including women.

A fight over whether a release of prisoners will move ahead is muddying the waters further and calling into question the timeline for the intra-Afghan talks. Meanwhile, violence, reduced ahead of the deal's signing, threatens to escalate again.

Several years back it was common to hear Afghan feminists argue that there should be no negotiations with the Taliban - a group that refused to recognize women's full humanity. Today those calls are all but gone. Even the staunchest women's rights activists have mostly accepted that there is no path to peace in Afghanistan but through negotiations with the Taliban.

But protecting women's rights needs to be one of the key objectives of this process, and for that to happen, women need to be at the negotiating table. Governments increasingly recognize that the role of women in peace processes is not just an afterthought, but critical to sustainable and implementable peace accords. The Afghan government and all its international partners need to back Afghan women, who are in the fight of their lives.

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A crucial moment for women's rights in Afghanistan

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This is a moment of both fear and hope for Afghan women - and an urgent time for the world to support their hard-won rights. The Feb. 29 deal between the US and the Taliban could pave the way for a peace that Afghans desperately seek.