While Americans celebrate a new year, a tragedy is unfolding thousands of miles away largely of our own making. On Dec. 20, 2022, the Taliban regime in Afghanistan fundamentally silenced Afghan women and girls by prohibiting them from attending universities. This ban comes on top of earlier orders preventing Afghan girls from attending middle and high schools.
Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that bans girls from going to school and universities. The Taliban’s gender apartheid subjects Afghanistan’s women and girls, and eventually all its citizens, to lifelong poverty.
The United States and its partners must stand by Afghan women and girls in their most dire hour of need. The good news is with advances in digital learning and education technology, we can fight the Taliban’s misogyny without dropping a single bomb.
About the authors
Asim I. Khwaja
Asim I. Khwaja is the faculty director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University and professor of international finance and development at the Harvard Kennedy School. Khwaja is also the co-founder of the Center for Economic Research in Pakistan.
Fatema Z. Sumar
Fatema Z. Sumar is the executive director of the Center for International Development at Harvard University. Sumar formerly served as U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia and vice president of global programs at Oxfam America.
