Malala Yousafzai called on Muslim leaders to challenge the Taliban government in Afghanistan and its repressive policies against girls and women.
“Simply put, the Taliban in Afghanistan do not see women as human beings,” she said at an international summit hosted by Pakistan on girls’ education in Islamic countries.
Ms Yousafzai told Muslim leaders there was “nothing Islamic” about the Taliban’s policies, which include banning women from education and preventing women from working.
The 27-year-old was evacuated from Pakistan at the age of 15 after being shot in the head by a Pakistani Taliban gunman who targeted her for speaking out about girls’ education.
Addressing a conference in Islamabad on Sunday, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate said she was “overwhelmed and happy” to be back in her homeland. She has returned to Pakistan only a few times since the 2012 attack making his first comeback in 2018.
On Sunday, she said the Taliban government had re-created a “system of gender apartheid”.
The Taliban “punished women and girls who dared to break their obscure laws by beating, detaining and injuring them,” she said.
She added that the group “covers up its crimes with cultural and religious justification”, but in fact “goes against everything our religion stands for”.
The Taliban declined to respond to a BBC request for comment on the advocates’ remarks. They have previously said they respect women’s rights in accordance with their interpretation of Afghan culture and Islamic law.
The group’s leaders were invited to a summit hosted by the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) by the Pakistani government and the Muslim World League, but did not attend.
Among the conference participants were dozens of ministers and scientists from Muslim-majority countries who advocated for girls’ education.
Since the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan in 2021, their government has not been officially recognized by any foreign government. Western powers have said the group’s policy of restricting women needs to change.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where women and girls are banned from secondary and higher education – about one and a half million have been deliberately deprived of education.
The Taliban have repeatedly promised to be readmitted to the school once a number of issues are resolved – including ensuring the curriculum is “Islamic”. This has yet to happen.
In December, women were also banned from training as midwives and nurses, effectively closing their last avenue to further education in the country.
Ms. Yousafzai said that girls’ education is under threat in many countries. She said Israel had “decimated the entire education system” in Gaza.
She called on those present to “call out the worst violations” of girls’ right to education and pointed out that the crises in countries like Afghanistan, Yemen and Sudan meant “the entire future of girls has been stolen”.