Two schools for girls in northern Afghanistan and one in eastern Afghanistan were burned down by suspected Taliban insurgents. This brings the number of girls’ schools attacked in Afghanistan since last fall to over 19.
Two tents that were used as schools in the Charar Bolak district in the Balkh province were set fire late Sunday. Leaflets were left at the site warning people to “not send girls to schools,” reports the Associated Press. On Saturday another school for girls was burned down in eastern Afghanistan. The Shaga Primary School in the Dara-e-Norr district of the Nangarhar province was left in ruins, according to the Associated Press. Almost two years after the fall of the Taliban, most girls are still not in school.
These attacks are examples of the mounting insecurity that is taking over Afghanistan. On Wednesday an Afghan aid worker was killed in an ambush in the southern province of Helmand. Meanwhile, at a conference at the NATO headquarters in Brussels last week, international experts and aid organizations called for the expansion of ISAF. The Feminist Majority is leading the call for increased reconstruction funding and for more resources to support the work of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Independent Human Rights Commission.
TAKE ACTION Urge Bush to Expand Peacekeeping Troops in Afghanistan
