Malala Yousafzai: Afghanistan girls should be granted work and education rights

Malala Yousafzai issued the call at a meeting with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and other US officials in Washington on Monday.

Before the closed-door meeting, the rights advocate said: “Afghanistan right now is the only country where girls do not have access to secondary education.”

Dawn quoted her as saying: “They are prohibited from learning, and I have been working together with Afghan girls and women’s activists.

“There’s this one message from them — that they should be given the right to work, they should be able to go to school.”

Malala also read a letter from a 15-year-old Afghan girl Sotodah to President Joe Biden. Blinken promised delivering it to the president.

“The longer schools and universities remain closed to girls, the more it will shadow hope for our future,” Sotodah wrote:

She called girls’ education a powerful tool for bringing peace and security to the country. “If girls don’t learn, Afghanistan will suffer, too.”

Earlier, Blinken hailed Malala as “truly an inspiration — an inspiration to us, an inspiration to girls and women around the world”.

He acknowledged the young activist from Pakistan was making a real difference, particularly on the issue of education.