Driven by a broadly maligned interpretation of Islamic law, the Taliban has waged a violent campaign against girls’ education.

Driven by the belief that education is a human right — and the more broadly accepted view across the Muslim world that contrary to Taliban beliefs, women and girls are obligated to receive an education — advocates have risked everything to resist the ban.  

These two statements are as true today across Afghanistan as they were in Pakistan’s Swat Valley in 2012 when 15-year-old education activist Malala Yousafzai was viciously attacked while returning home from school one day.

In the years that have since passed, Malala has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, graduated from Oxford University, and ceaselessly advocated for girls’ education vis-à-vis the Malala Fund, a global organization she co-founded with her father, Ziauddin Yousafzai. A longtime advocate for equal rights to education, Ziauddin had run a girls’ school in the Swat Valley despite the continued escalation of TPP violence. And the ideals that propelled him through these threats have only grown stronger in the years since his daughter’s attack — particularly as history has repeated itself across Afghanistan since the Taliban regime’s 2021 resurgence.

JURIST* spoke with Ziauddin to learn more about his background as an activist, his views on the Afghan Taliban’s crackdown on girls’ education, and his hopes that the Muslim world will help convince the regime that their views on education are un-Islamic. This is Part Two of a two-part interview. Part One can be found here.

*This interview was conducted in two parts by JURIST Editorial Director Ingrid Burke Friedman and an unnamed Afghan legal scholar. Despite the latter having spearheaded the interview, she has been forced to remain anonymous and curtail her work on this story due to concerns for her safety. An educated woman has been stifled from documenting the crackdown on girls’ education in her own country due to fear of reprisal and harm from the Taliban regime. The education that once empowered her to advocate for the rights of her country’s women and girls now exposes her to persecution. She has been silenced by the very societal risks we grapple with in this story. We hope this context will illustrate what’s at stake as Afghanistan continues to silence and alienate its women and girls.

JURIST: Are the men of Afghanistan doing enough to advocate for the educational rights of women and girls?

Yousafzai: When the Taliban banned girls’ education in the Swat Valley, many activists — many brave people — spoke out against the education ban.

But Malala’s voice as a child, as a girl, and my voice as a father, were among the most powerful voices for the rights of education. And what I see missing in today’s situation in Afghanistan is the voice of the men of Afghanistan. The men’s voices are missing [from the fight] for human rights in Afghanistan, with the notable exceptions of men like Matiullah Wesa, Rasool Parsi, and Professor Ismail Mashal.

It is easy to criticize the UN, the EU, and other global organizations for not doing enough for the human rights situation in Afghanistan. And of course these criticisms are justified. But we are missing the most important segment [when it comes to Taliban political pressure] — the most important voice. That’s the voice of the men of Afghanistan.

My message to the men of Afghanistan — the fathers, the brothers, the sons, the grandfathers — is please rise. Rise, and raise up your voice for your daughters, for your sisters, for your mothers, for your granddaughters — they are half of your country. Fatherhood is not just bringing a child into this world and then feeding them. You are bound to protect your child’s basic human rights. How can fathers and brothers dare to remain complacent as the Taliban ban five million girls from schools and universities?

Twenty million women. How can you ignore them? How can you move forward while they’re left behind? This is impossible. But unfortunately, when I see women and girls in the streets of Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and in other parts of Afghanistan, especially in big towns, they are not accompanied by men. Is it just a women’s issue? No, it’s not a women’s issue. Women’s rights are human rights. And men must stand up.

I am not asking the men to pick up guns and fight — no. I just ask them to come out of their homes, raise their voices, meet with Taliban leaders. Put pressure on them. Tell them that enough is enough. Let our girls go to school. Let Afghan girls go to school. This is unacceptable. I believe that once this message goes from the men of Afghanistan to the Taliban, girls will be able to go back to school. And that is so important.

I would also encourage those in the Afghan diaspora who reside in other countries to speak up. They have the freedom and liberty to approach different embassies, the United Nations, the European Union, and other organizations such as the Organization of Islamic Cooperation to demand change in Afghanistan. The current situation in Afghanistan is unacceptable, inhumane, and unjust.

JURIST: Based on what happened to Malala in 2012, you know better than most people why it can be so scary to take a stand against the Taliban. What would you say to men who resist taking a stand because of their fear?

Yousafzai: I know it is scary to speak against the Taliban, but it is scarier not to. If you don’t speak out, you will live under their subjugation, and spend your whole life deprived of your rights.

Standing up to the Taliban is undeniably challenging. The fear they instill is very real. They’ve imprisoned both men and women activists who advocate for important causes, such as education. People who were committed to promoting girls’ education in Afghanistan have faced severe consequences for their activism.

What’s striking is the lack of widespread male support for women’s rights. While this reluctance may stem partly out of fear, another part might be due to a lack of interest in advocating for women’s rights. The previous Taliban regime conducted atrocious acts, such as bombing schools and hospitals, perpetuating a cycle of destruction. Their policy was clear: when in power, they closed schools, and when not in power, they resorted to bombing them.

Provided to JURIST.

The issue extends beyond Afghanistan. In many other countries, men actively support women’s rights without the same fear. This contrast indicates that the problem isn’t rooted only in fear, but potentially in a patriarchal mindset. The inherent fear and societal norms contribute to this complex situation. There’s a subtle yet prevalent patriarchal influence that hampers the advocacy for women’s rights. Education in segregated spaces is a different discussion, but the denial of education due to gender is unjustifiable.

JURIST: Is the international community doing enough to defend the rights of Afghanistan’s women and girls?

Yousafzai: This is such a sad thing because the Taliban was brought back into power through the Doha Peace Deal [ed: formally referred to as the Joint Declaration between the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the United States of America for Bringing Peace to Afghanistan]. And long before the Taliban’s occupation of Kabul, it was evident that things quickly were moving forward in favor of the Taliban. So the international community helped bring the Taliban back into power in Kabul. Now it’s their responsibility — especially the U.S. and its allies — to ask the Taliban to respect human rights, especially the rights of women and girls to work and to receive an education. But I don’t see much pressure from the international community.

[Ed: Referring to a statement by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who said: “We remain the leading donor of humanitarian assistance to the Afghan people, some $1.9 billion since August of 2021.  And we continue to work to hold the Taliban accountable for the many commitments that it’s made and not fulfilled, particularly when it comes to the rights of women and girls. We’ve been very clear with the Taliban, and dozens of countries around the world have been very clear, that the path to any more normal relationship between the Taliban and other countries will be blocked unless and until the rights of women and girls, among other things, are actually supported.”] I didn’t hear any strong message to the Taliban. It appears that [the international community is] more interested in advancing their strategic goals than the basic human rights of the Afghan people — Afghan minorities, non-Taliban Afghans, and of course, Afghan women and girls. … The international community has bas been more preoccupied with their counterterrorism and counter-narcotics agendas than they have been with the suffering of the 20 million women and girls of Afghanistan.

I believe that they need to do more to protect the fundamental rights of the 20 million women and girls of Afghanistan. The world is not doing enough. Really. They are not. They are not serious in their demands of the Taliban. Otherwise, the schools would not still be closed.

JURIST: What role can and should Muslim countries play in pressuring Afghanistan to educate its girls and women?

I believe that Muslim countries have an even greater responsibility [than the international community more broadly] to respond to the situation because what’s happening right now in Afghanistan is contagious. It will spread to neighboring countries, to other Muslim countries, because the Taliban are extremists, and they’re not the only extremist group. Pakistan has the TPP, there’s the [Islamic State], there’s Boko Haram. These organizations will be motivated by the Taliban’s model of government, their style of rule, and they will endeavor to introduce similar things in their own communities. They will struggle for the same occupation, the same rule in their own countries.

I remember when the Taliban were ruling in Afghanistan [for the first time, from 1996-2001]. After 9/11, after their government lost power, we saw an outpouring of Taliban into Pakistan. And the Taliban of Pakistan, embracing the same ideology of the Afghan Taliban, started bombing schools in Pakistan. Hundreds of schools were bombed, and girls were stopped from going to school. Ideologies are contagious. You can’t contain them within a border; you can’t stop them from spreading to other countries.

In this regard, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has a greater responsibility to hold the Taliban regime accountable for respecting human rights in general, and in particular, the rights of women and girls to education. It is shameful that we don’t see more pressure from the OIC and from other Muslim countries.

Martin Luther King beautifully said that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” This is so important to remember. If we want to protect the rights of girls’ education everywhere, we must stand up for the rights of girls to receive an education in Afghanistan.

JURIST: What would you say to the women and girls in Afghanistan who continue to advocate for the restoration of their own rights?

Yousafzai: My simple message to Afghan women would be to persist in raising their voices from any available platform, prioritizing their personal safety and security while seizing opportunities to advocate for their rights.

There is no Afghanistan under the Taliban. Afghanistan is gone. This is Talibanistan. This is a land where the Taliban can act like rascals and scoundrels, and America and other countries can use that to their strategic advantage. But they don’t represent the people of Afghanistan.

[As long as doing so is safe,] the women of Afghanistan should take any chance they can find to speak out.

As noted above, this is Part Two of a two-part interview. Part One can be found here.