Cairo, January 26th, 2023
The twenty-fourth of January every year marks the International Day of Education, to emphasize its importance in progress and development. Despite the importance of education, girls in the Islamic world suffer from the decline in the value of education and the low rates of school attendance, which leads to an increase in early marriage and early childbearing, more poverty and a widening of the gender gap. Within this context, Islamic countries occupy a declining position in almost every indicator concerning gender equality on international ratings.
This is confirmed by development reports. According to the 2022 Global Gender Gap Report, most Islamic countries came in a regressive position, as Tunisia ranked 120, Jordan 122, Nigeria 123, Turkey 124, Saudi Arabia 127, Egypt 129, Kuwait 130, Pakistan 145, and Afghanistan occupied the last ranked with 146.
Afghanistan, in particular, suffers the most from girls’ education, since the Taliban’s takeover of power in 2021, and according to UNESCO data, the Taliban’s decision to suspend girls under the age of 12 from education after the primary stage indefinitely resulted in 2.5 million (80%) of school-aged Afghan girls and young women are out of school, 1.2 million of whom were denied access to secondary schools and universities. To make matters worse, a decision was issued to close universities on December 20, 2022, affecting more than 100,000 female students in public and private higher education institutions.
Therefore, ECWR calls on the countries of the world to support girls’ education, especially in countries that suffer from the control of extremist movements, which impose more restrictions on women’s movement to impose more control on society as a whole. Using false religious claims that have nothing to do with religion, the Islamic religion calls for and affirms the right to education for women and men. ECWR also calls for returning Afghan girls to school and stopping the violation against girls’ and women’s rights to education.
In this context, ECWR in cooperation with the Malala Fund, launched the “Read” campaign to support girls’ education from a developmental, human rights and Islamic perspective, which emphasizes the right to education for girls as a basis for the right to development and the right to life, and works to confront extremist ideas that contribute to depriving girls of education or using it as a justification for closing girls’ schools.
The ‘Read’ campaign aims to combat misconceptions related to girls’ social, cultural and religious rights, which constitute an obstacle to millions of girls and women’s access to equal opportunities in education, in addition to publishing an enlightened religious discourse based on the Women’s Rights Document issued by Al-Azhar Al-Sharif with the aim of eliminating all harmful practices related to Women’s issues, including the denial of education.
