Female Education in Afghanistan: A Breach of Human Rights

Running head: FEMALE EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN
Female Education in Afghanistan
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author Note

1FEMALE EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN
Introduction
Afghanistan has ratified various international treaties that include education as a basic
right. The country has ratified the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC) and the
International Covenant on Economic Social and Cultural Rights. Afghanistan is also a
ratified member of the Convention on the Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination against
Women (CEDAW). All these conventions in some way or the other strive to deliver equal
rights to women in the field of education. International Human Rights Law ensures that
everyone has a right to free, compulsory and primary education, which would be devoid of
any kind of gender bias or otherwise ("Human Rights Watch", 2018). Under International
Law secondary education is also made available and accessible to all without any form of
discrimination. The Government of Afghanistan strives to incorporate a positive obligation to
provide remedy for the abuses that challenges the right of education for girls that suffers due
to backward social and cultural practices. The aim of the paper is to study the breach of
human rights pertaining to female education in Afghanistan, its impact and response of
credible sources.
Human Right Breaches
Afghanistan faces a serious breach of human rights that strive to provide education to
women. Article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that every
person has the right to receive free and compulsory elementary education. Technical,
professional and higher education shall be made available and accessible based on merit
("Universal Declaration of Human Rights", 2018). This provision of the UDHR is severely
breached by Afghanistan by its approach towards education system, especially for female
education . Therefore, the Human Rights Law approaches the government to deal with the
social and cultural subordination of women in terms of education and other relevant social

2FEMALE EDUCATION IN AFGHANISTAN
issues. Human Rights Law calls for the country's tolerance towards the disproportionate ratio
of girls being away from the education system which severely violates human rights.
Functioning of educational institution involves a decent infrastructure for the school building,
proper sanitation facilities for boys and girls, safe drinking water, stationary materials,
availability of teachers who are well trained to impart the basic primary education to the
children, and other facilities like a library and computer facilities (Jayachandran, 2015).
Although in the last 16 years, the Afghan Government with the help of its International
supporters has evolved over the matter of providing elementary education to girls and
sending them to schools for higher studies ("Human Rights Watch", 2018). However, severe
obstacles are still restricting a large ratio of girls to receive the basic education in elementary
school level and therefore, diminishing the little gains that the government has achieved in
recent times. This makes the way for the government of Afghanistan and its international
donors to increase their effort to reduce the obstacles that comes on the ways of female
education in order to guarantee the girls their basic human rights to primary and secondary
education.
Impact on the victims and society
The impact of the violation of the Human Rights that claims to provide basic and
primary education to girls in Afghanistan has been severe on the social, cultural and
political scenario of the country. Such breach of Human Rights leads to discriminatory
attitude of the society, community members and government officials towards girls which
makes them bound to portray girls as commodities that are reared for domestic assistance and
religious rites. It is evident that the status of women can only be improved by incorporating
modern education and knowledge into the society through the new generation especially girls
who are seemed to be the first source of education for the future generation as mothers are the
first teacher of their children. An illiterate woman would naturally impart poor knowledge