Two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school due to growing insecurity and poverty, Human Rights Watch said on Tuesday, underlining the challenges of educating women in the patriarchal country 16 years after the Taliban were ousted.
While millions more girls are receiving an education than during the Taliban's repressive 1996-2001 regime, progress has stalled in recent years, the rights group warned, with the proportion of female students falling in parts of the country.
About 85 per cent of the 3.5 million children out of school are girls, the New York-based organisation said in a report based on research in four provinces and government data.
"Sixteen years after the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school," it said.
But the rights group warned the real situation was likely much worse because Afghanistan does not record children as being out of school until they have failed for three years to attend class.
"Overstated high numbers [for female attendance] have helped give the impression that there is a continued positive trajectory, when in fact numbers are actually decreasing in some parts of the country," the report said.
Despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent in the past 16 years on female education, Human Rights Watch said even the most optimistic statistics showed only "slightly more than half of girls are in school".
An education ministry official told Human Rights Watch in April that 39 per cent of the 9.3 million students in school were girls but the group noted that Afghan government data was notoriously unreliable.
Describing the gains as "partial and fragile", it said millions of girls had never been to school and many more had only attended briefly.
"The Afghan government and donors made bold promises in 2001 to get all girls into education, but insecurity, poverty and displacement are now driving many girls out of school," said Liesl Gerntholtz, women's rights director at Human Rights Watch.
Government statistics indicate that in some provinces, the percentage of students who are girls is as low as 15 per cent, the report said.
Among the many barriers to female education are a lack of schools, female teachers and basic facilities such as toilets.
On top of that conflict has driven thousands of families from their homes and many school-age girls are forced to work to support loved ones.
In areas controlled by the Taliban girls receive limited or no education at all, while in contested zones girls trying to attend class face heightened security threats.
"The conflict has been accompanied by lawlessness, as militias and criminal gangs have proliferated, and girls face threats including sexual harassment, kidnapping, and acid attacks, as well as targeted attacks and threats against girls' education," the report said.
_____________________
Read more:
How giving just two years in the classroom will change the rest of your life
Afghan girls robotics team arrives in Washington after Trump's intervention
_____________________
Real estate tokenisation project
Dubai launched the pilot phase of its real estate tokenisation project last month.
The initiative focuses on converting real estate assets into digital tokens recorded on blockchain technology and helps in streamlining the process of buying, selling and investing, the Dubai Land Department said.
Dubai’s real estate tokenisation market is projected to reach Dh60 billion ($16.33 billion) by 2033, representing 7 per cent of the emirate’s total property transactions, according to the DLD.
At a glance
Global events: Much of the UK’s economic woes were blamed on “increased global uncertainty”, which can be interpreted as the economic impact of the Ukraine war and the uncertainty over Donald Trump’s tariffs.
Growth forecasts: Cut for 2025 from 2 per cent to 1 per cent. The OBR watchdog also estimated inflation will average 3.2 per cent this year
Welfare: Universal credit health element cut by 50 per cent and frozen for new claimants, building on cuts to the disability and incapacity bill set out earlier this month
Spending cuts: Overall day-to day-spending across government cut by £6.1bn in 2029-30
Tax evasion: Steps to crack down on tax evasion to raise “£6.5bn per year” for the public purse
Defence: New high-tech weaponry, upgrading HM Naval Base in Portsmouth
Housing: Housebuilding to reach its highest in 40 years, with planning reforms helping generate an extra £3.4bn for public finances
The White Lotus: Season three
Creator: Mike White
Starring: Walton Goggins, Jason Isaacs, Natasha Rothwell
Rating: 4.5/5
The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
In numbers: PKK’s money network in Europe
Germany: PKK collectors typically bring in $18 million in cash a year – amount has trebled since 2010
Revolutionary tax: Investigators say about $2 million a year raised from ‘tax collection’ around Marseille
Extortion: Gunman convicted in 2023 of demanding $10,000 from Kurdish businessman in Stockholm
Drug trade: PKK income claimed by Turkish anti-drugs force in 2024 to be as high as $500 million a year
Denmark: PKK one of two terrorist groups along with Iranian separatists ASMLA to raise “two-digit million amounts”
Contributions: Hundreds of euros expected from typical Kurdish families and thousands from business owners
TV channel: Kurdish Roj TV accounts frozen and went bankrupt after Denmark fined it more than $1 million over PKK links in 2013
COMPANY%20PROFILE
%3Cp%3E%3Cstrong%3EName%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EQureos%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EBased%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3EUAE%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ELaunch%20year%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E2021%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ENumber%20of%20employees%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E33%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3ESector%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3ESoftware%20and%20technology%0D%3Cbr%3E%3Cstrong%3EFunding%3A%20%3C%2Fstrong%3E%243%20million%0D%3Cbr%3E%3C%2Fp%3E%0A
