By South China Morning Post | Created at 2025-01-12 10:26:12 | Updated at 2025-01-12 13:05:45
2 hours ago
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai urged Muslim leaders on Sunday not to “legitimise” the Afghan Taliban government and to “show true leadership” by opposing their curbs on women and girls’ education.
“Do not legitimise them,” she said at a summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations being held in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad.
“As Muslim leaders, now is the time to raise your voices, use your power. You can show true leadership. You can show true Islam,” said 27-year-old Yousafzai.
The two-day conference has brought together ministers and education officials from dozens of Muslim-majority countries, backed by the Muslim World League.
Since sweeping back to power in 2021, the Taliban government has imposed an austere version of Islamic law that the United Nations has labelled “gender apartheid”.
Their curbs have shut women and girls out of secondary school and university education, as well as many government jobs, and seen them sequestered out of many aspects of public life.
Delegates from Afghanistan’s Taliban government did not attend the event despite being invited, Pakistan Education Minister Khalid Maqbool Siddiqui said on Saturday.
