Amnesty International issued a statement saying that Afghan girls “must be allowed” to return to secondary school and continue their education. 

“At present, girls in Afghanistan are effectively barred from returning to secondary school. Across the country, the rights and aspirations of an entire generation of girls are dismissed and crushed,” said Agnès Callamard, Amnesty International’s secretary general. 

However, Afghan educational officials have repeatedly said that they are working on plans to reopen the girls' schools.  

Amnesty International called on the international community to facilitate appropriate funding for Afghanistan’s education sector to enable schools to continue functioning, through organizations such as the UN or NGOs. 

This comes as in only three out of 34 provinces, girls students are allowed to attend their secondary and high schools.  

“I am in grade 9 and three years of education remains, beyond that the college also is ahead of me. Afghanistan today needs an educated generation,” said Shamila a secondary school student. “We call on the Islamic Emirate to reopen the schools for girls.”  

Another student, Samira said, “We ask the Islamic Emirate to let us restart our education, restart our activities, study and live.” 

Meanwhile, the secretary-general of amnesty international said that the “Taliban should immediately re-open all secondary schools to girls.” 

The former spokesperson for the then Women's Affairs Ministry, Roya Dadras, said, “When a girl is not allowed to go to school, when a woman is not allowed to work, when woman cannot walk freely on the street, then what type of government is it that they have formed?”