UNICEF: Taliban to allow Afghan girls to attend secondary schools

A senior UN official said Friday the Taliban told him they will announce 'very soon' that all Afghan girls will be allowed to attend secondary schools.

Report informs, citing foreign media, that UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Omar Abdi, who visited Kabul last week, told reporters at UN headquarters that five of Afghanistan's 34 provinces -- Balkh, Jawzjan and Samangan in the northwest, Kunduz in the northeast and Urozgan in the southwest -- are already allowing girls to attend secondary school.

He said the Taliban’s education minister told him they are working on “a framework” to allow all girls to continue their schooling beyond the sixth grade, which should be published “between a month and two.”

“As I speak to you today, millions of girls of secondary school age are missing out on education for the 27th consecutive day,” Abdi said. “We are urging them not to wait. Any day that we wait -- it’s a day lost for those girls that are out of school.”