Karzai urges immediate return of girls to school to help economic future

Former president Hamid Karzai said in an interview this week that Afghan girls should return to school immediately, stressing that education was needed to help the country “move ahead” and reduce its reliance on the rest of the world.

“The most important and pressing issue is the return of Afghan girls to school from grades 6 to 12,” Karzai said in an interview with Al Arabiya.

“These are the issues and these are the decisions of the Afghan people [that] require of the current government to make so that Afghanistan moves ahead with education, so that Afghanistan is able to stand on its own feet rather than being a country that is in need of the world, rather than being a country from which its people are running away, that has to stop.”

Karzai also said that a power-sharing model of governance was “not necessary” so long as the Islamic EMirate of Afghanistan (IEA) interim government earned the approval of the Afghan people.

“…The whole idea [is] to bring about a feeling that Afghanistan belongs to all its people and that the government of Afghanistan is representing all its people, and that it is moving in a direction where the aspirations of the people are being fulfilled.”

Karzai said that one way the IEA can gain the approval of the country’s people was to ensure the return of girls to school. 

“It is in the interest of the Afghan people to have Afghan women get educated. The entire Muslim world is getting girls educated. Islam emphasizes the education for girls, [it] lays immense emphasis on education and learning, and Afghanistan cannot be an exception. The Afghan woman obey hijab fully among the best in the Western world in this regard. Therefore, there is no reason there cannot be an excuse not allowing girls to go to school,” he said.