Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai on Sunday urged Muslim leaders not to “legitimize” the Afghan Taliban government and “show true leadership” by opposing their restrictions on women and girls’ education.
“Don’t legalize them,” he said at a summit on girls’ education in Muslim countries in the Pakistani capital Islamabad.
“As Muslim leaders, now is the time to raise your voice, use your power. You can show true leadership. You can show true Islam,” said Yousafzai, 27.
The two-day conference, supported by the Muslim World League, brought together ministers and education officials from dozens of Muslim-majority countries.
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban government has imposed a strict version of Islamic law that the United Nations has labeled “gender apartheid.”
Their restrictions have excluded women and girls from secondary school and university education, as well as from many government jobs, and have isolated them from many aspects of public life.
Pakistan’s Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui told AFP on Saturday that representatives of Afghanistan’s Taliban government did not attend the event despite being invited.
“Simply put, the Taliban do not view women as human beings,” Yousafzai told the conference.
“They hide their crimes in cultural and religious justifications.”
Yousafzai was shot in the face by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012 when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl while campaigning for women’s education rights.
Her activism earned her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014, and she has since become a global advocate for women’s and girls’ education rights.
“The Taliban have been clear about their mission: They want to eliminate women and girls from every aspect of public life and erase them from society,” she told the conference.
While much of the international community is outraged over the Taliban government’s sanctions, nations are divided on how to negotiate with Kabul’s rulers on the issue.
Some countries argue that they should be kept out of the diplomatic community until they back down, while others prefer to persuade them to make a U-turn.
No country has officially recognized Taliban officials, but several regional governments have engaged on trade and security issues.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
