Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, says UNESCO

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Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, says UNESCO

2024-08-15 15:44 Last Updated At：15:50

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Taliban have deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling through bans, a United Nations agency said Thursday. Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education.

The Taliban, who took power in 2021, barred education for girls above sixth grade because they said it didn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law. They didn’t stop it for boys and show no sign of taking the steps needed to reopen classrooms and campuses for girls and women.

UNESCO said at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since the takeover, an increase of 300,000 since its previous count in April 2023, with more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.

“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls,” UNESCO said.

The Taliban did not respond to requests for comment.

Access to primary education has also fallen since the Taliban took power in Aug. 2021, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, according to UNESCO data.

The U.N. agency warned that authorities have “almost wiped out” two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan. “ The future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy,” it added.

It said Afghanistan had 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019. The enrollment drop was the result of the Taliban decision to bar female teachers from teaching boys, UNESCO said, but could also be explained by a lack of parental incentive to send their children to school in an increasingly tough economic environment.

“UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labor and early marriage,” it said.

The Taliban celebrated three years of rule Wednesday at Bagram Air Base, but there was no mention of the country’s hardships, nor promises to help the struggling population.

Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation and unemployment is high.

Trump hits the golf course as the stock market plummets for a second straight day over tariffs

2025-04-05 01:29 Last Updated At：01:41

WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Two days after sending the economy reeling by announcing widespread tariffs, President Donald Trump insisted his trade policies will never change as he remained ensconced in a bubble of wealth and power in Florida.

He woke up on Friday morning at Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Palm Beach, and headed to his nearby golf course a few miles away after writing on social media that “THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO GET RICH."

Several supporters stood on the sidewalk as Trump, wearing his signature red “Make America Great Again” hat and white polo shirt, glided down a street lined with palm trees. They waved to him and he waved back, part of a ritual that plays out every weekend that he's in town.

The Republican president was not expected to appear publicly, although he's scheduled to attend a candlelit dinner for MAGA Inc., an allied political organization, on Friday evening. He spent Thursday in Miami at a different one of his golf courses, where he attended a Saudi-funded tournament. He landed in Marine One and was picked up in a golf cart driven by his son Eric.

Trump has often proved impervious to the kind of scandals or gaffes that would damage another politician, but his decision to spend the weekend at his gilded properties could test Americans' patience at a time when their retirement savings are evaporating along with the stock market. The tariffs are expected to increase prices by thousands of dollars per year and slow economic growth, and there are fears about a potential recession.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Friday that the tariffs were “significantly larger than expected” and are “highly likely” to cause more inflation — at least in the short term but possibly in the long term as well.

However, Trump has described his policies as a painful yet necessary step to encourage companies to relocate their operations to the United States, and he spent the morning defending himself on Truth Social, his social media platform, vowing he is sticking with his policies.

Although experts have harshly criticized Trump's tariffs, he's found some support on TikTok. He shared a video that said “Trump is crashing the stock market” and “he’s doing it on purpose” as part of a “secret game he’s playing, and it could make you rich.”

The goal, the video said, is to push the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates, something that Trump explicitly called for later in the morning.

“This would be a PERFECT time" for Powell to cut interest rates, he wrote. “CUT INTEREST RATES, JEROME, AND STOP PLAYING POLITICS!”

With foreign leaders scrambling in response to Trump's announcement this week, the president lashed out and looked to cut deals.

He said he spoke with Vietnamese leader To Lam and claimed Vietnam wants to eliminate its tariffs on U.S. goods if it can make a deal with the U.S.

He also criticized China for announcing its own tariffs on U.S. imports.

“CHINA PLAYED IT WRONG, THEY PANICKED - THE ONE THING THEY CANNOT AFFORD TO DO!” he wrote.

Republicans suggested that Trump's policies would be the start of a parley with foreign countries.

“The president is a dealmaker if nothing else, and he’s going to continue to deal country by country with each of them,” said Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming. He added that Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent had told Senate Republicans this week that the tariffs would be a “high level mark with the ultimate goal of getting them reduced” unless other countries retaliate.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York called Trump’s tariffs “a brutal pincer move with American families trapped in the middle.”

Meanwhile, Trump also celebrated a new report showing the U.S. added 228,000 jobs in March, beating expectations. Although the numbers were a snapshot of the economy before the tariff announcement, Trump claimed vindication, saying they already show his moves are working.

“HANG TOUGH," he wrote. "WE CAN’T LOSE!!!”

Megerian reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Stephen Groves contributed to this report from Washington.