Kashmir Women
JK women protest in front of UN office in Srinagar against condition of women in Afghanistan, PoK, Pakistan
Srinagar: A large number of women demonstrated in front of the UN office in Srinagar against the 'deplorable' state of educational opportunities for girls in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK).
They submitted a memorandum to the UN where they appealed to initiate a United Nations driven process to protect the rights of these women to secular education.
" Excellency, since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, all schools and educational institutions for girls have been shut down. The two decades of enforced peace under an international mandate had provided a glimmer of hope to thousands of girls and their families that Afghan girls could finally have access to education without fear. The geo-political compromise of August 15, 2021 changed all that in the blink of an eye without a thought to the implications for half of that country’s population," read the memorandum.
" If the plight of Afghan women and men is to be the responsibility of Afghans alone, then they should have been left alone a long time ago. Afghanistan today is the world’s least developed nation and the historical role of nations in contributing to it can be ignored, but not denied. It is the responsibility of the international community to ensure that not just food and shelter, but education, particularly for girls, is also included in the humanitarian relief endeavour," it said.
" Half of Afghanistan’s population cannot be disenfranchised by denying it the right to education. The international community needs to acknowledge the issue of education of Afghan women with all the seriousness that it deserves," it said.
Speaking on the situation in Jammu and Kashmir, the memorandum mentioned: "Excellency, a lot of propaganda is carried out across the United Nations and other multilateral platforms about the human rights situation in Jammu and Kashmir."
"The proponents and buyers of this propaganda conveniently ignore the wide gap in the educational opportunities afforded to the girls of J&K in comparison with their sisters in those parts of J&K which are illegally under foreign occupation. Pakistan Occupied Kashmir and Gilgit-Baltistan today have been sadly left behind on the education front, depriving our sisters of the right to modern and secular education. Over the years, Pakistani leadership has resorted to spreading religious conservatism as a means of political domination," it said.
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