Connect with us

AFRICA

Afghan Children Aren’t Receiving the Education they Need

Published

on

According to a report released on Saturday by the Ministry of Education, the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and UNICEF, almost half of Afghan children are out of school due to factors such as nationwide conflict, poverty, and forced child marriage. This equates to about 3.7 million, or about 40% of children, between 7 and 17 who are not receiving an education. Girls constitute 60% of the children missing out on classes, while in the most impoverished areas, this percentage climbs as high as 85%. This is likely due to the influence of Taliban regime, which discriminates against women in an attempt to adhere to strict Islamic law. In certain areas, girls are denied access to education except for in religious institutions.

The two main reasons why millions of Afghan girls are not attending school are that their parents did not send them to school in the first place, or that child marriage forced girls to drop out of school to care for their husbands and eventually their new families. According to a 2013 report by Amnesty International, a rise in forced marriage and other violations of women’s and young girl’s rights can be attributed to increasing political instability and fear of women increasing their participation in political decision-making. Therefore, political instability and lack of education go hand-in-hand; although Afghanistan’s Constitution calls for free education up until the bachelor’s level, the political situation renders it very difficult for women to safely take advantage of this policy. Many girls also fear for their safety as they make their way to and from classes.

Afghan children, therefore, face multiple economic, cultural, and security-related barriers to attending school. Children most susceptible to missing school include those living in rural areas, Kuchi (nomadic) children, children from low-income or poorly-educated families, and children in unsafe regions. Currently, the highest numbers of girls out of school are seen in Kabul, Kandahar, Herat, and Nangarhar.

A lack of demand for education may be playing a role in the low levels of school enrollment. Sociocultural factors such as gender, income, opportunity cost, and high unemployment rates even following the obtainment of an educational degree can make parents very reluctant to send their children to school in the first place. Meanwhile, an inadequate supply of education due to underdeveloped infrastructure and lack of education for nomadic children implies that children simply don’t have access to the kind of education they need. According to a 2015 Education for All Report, a mere 43% of Afghan teachers meet basic certification requirements. Finally, poor governance and low capacity present even more difficulties.

Improving school enrollment rates surely will not be an easy task. The Ministry of Education must undergo significant structural changes and take on larger roles and responsibilities in bringing about change within the education system. Outsiders including countries, institutions, and non-governmental organizations must pressure the Afghan government to improve rights for women and put an end to child labor and forced marriage. The government must also put an emphasis on early childhood education programs and community safety systems that allow children to walk to school without fear of being hurt or even killed. Measures to develop the economy of the nation must focus on eradicating the rural-urban divide, as children in the most underdeveloped rural areas face the greatest risk of being taken out of school to work for their families.

Education is key to a country’s economic and political development. Higher levels of education undoubtedly lead to an increase in employment opportunities, affluence, and public participation in political decision-making processes. Yet many Afghan children do not even have the chance to start school in the first place. The international community must play its part to stimulate change in Afghanistan, mainly by pushing for women’s rights and thereby creating in an environment in which young girls can receive the education they need.

Featured Image via Wikipedia

Continue Reading
Click to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

AFRICA

The UK paid Rwanda an additional $126 million for the contested migrant plan.

Published

on

As the tab for Britain’s controversial proposal to relocate asylum seekers to the East African nation continues to increase, the United Kingdom paid Rwanda an extra 100 million pounds ($126 million) in April. This was in addition to the 140 million pounds it had already provided Rwanda.

Even though the Rwanda project is at the core of the policy that British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is employing to discourage illegal immigration, there have been no individuals sent to Rwanda as of yet due to legal challenges that have taken place since the initiative was introduced in 2022.

After Sunak’s immigration minister resigned this week, the polarizing policy is now regarded as a danger to Sunak’s leadership, which is anticipated to be challenged in the election that will take place the following year.

According to a letter that the British Ministry of the Interior issued on Thursday, the United Kingdom plans to give Rwanda fifty million pounds in addition to the 240 million pounds it has already provided to the East African nation.

The opposition Labour Party criticized the disclosures regarding the rising cost of a scheme that legal experts warned could collapse. Some parliamentarians within Sunak’s party are also expected to express their disapproval of the idea.

A statement by Yvette Cooper, the shadow interior minister for the Labour Party, on social networking site X, said, “Britain cannot afford more of this costly Tory chaos and farce.”

On Friday, however, the newly appointed minister for legal migration, Tom Pursglove, explained what he called the “investment” of 240 million pounds. He stated that once the Rwanda policy was operational, it would reduce the money spent on hosting asylum-seekers in the United Kingdom.

“When you consider that we are unacceptably spending 8 million pounds a day in the asylum system at the moment, it is a key part of our strategy to bring those costs down,” Pursglove explained to Sky News.

Pursglove stated that the money donated to Rwanda would assist in the country’s economic growth and help get the asylum relationship with the United Kingdom up and running.

There was no connection between the money sent to Rwanda and the treaty that the two nations signed on Tuesday, according to the letter from the Ministry of the Interior.

The treaty aims to respond to a ruling by the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom, which stated that the deportation plan would contravene local laws based on international human rights standards.

“The Government of Rwanda did not ask for any payment in order for a Treaty to be signed, nor was any offered,” according to the correspondence.

After Robert Jenrick resigned from his position as immigration minister on Wednesday, Sunak made a plea to fellow Conservative parliamentarians on Thursday to come together in support of his Rwanda proposal. He stated that the emergency legislation the government had drafted to get the scheme up and running did not go far enough.

Continue Reading

Africa

UK interior minister travels to Rwanda to resurrect asylum plan.

Published

on

On Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior of the United Kingdom, James Cleverly, came to Rwanda to sign a new treaty. This was done to circumvent a court judgment that blocked the government’s contentious policy of transferring asylum seekers to the East African nation.

The Rwandan plan is at the core of the government’s attempt to reduce migration, and it is being closely monitored by other nations who are considered to be considering policies that are comparable to Rwanda’s.

In a decision handed down a month ago, the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom stated that such a move would violate international human rights norms embedded in domestic legislation.

Following the decision, the United Kingdom has been making efforts to revise its agreement with Rwanda to incorporate a legally binding treaty that guarantees Rwanda would not remove asylum seekers brought there by the United Kingdom. This is one of the primary concerns of the court.

Several attorneys and charitable organizations have said that it is highly improbable that deportation flights will begin before the election. With a lead of more than ten percentage points in the polls, the opposition Labour Party intends to abandon the Rwanda policy if it is victorious.

A meeting between Cleverly, who arrived in Kigali, the capital of Rwanda, on Tuesday morning, and Vincent Biruta, the country’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, is scheduled to take place to sign the agreement.

“Rwanda cares deeply about the rights of refugees, and I look forward to meeting with counterparts to sign this agreement and further discuss how we work together to tackle the global challenge of illegal migration,” Cleverly says.

The United Kingdom aims to transfer thousands of asylum seekers who came to its beaches without authorization to Rwanda under the plan that was agreed upon the previous year. This discourages migrants from crossing the Channel from Europe in tiny boats.

In exchange, Rwanda has been given an initial payment of 140 million pounds, equivalent to 180 million dollars, along with the promise of additional funds to cover the costs of housing and medical treatment for any deported persons.

THE PRESSURE
A great deal of pressure is being put on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to reduce net migration, which reached a record high of 745 thousand people in the previous year, with the vast majority of migrants entering through legal channels.

“Stop the boats” is one of the five goals that Sunak has set for his government. The influx of asylum seekers who pay people smugglers for their crossings of the Channel, which frequently take place in boats that are overloaded and not seaworthy, is one of the aims that Sunak has set.

The Supreme Court determined that the Rwanda plan should not be implemented because there was a possibility that refugees who were deported would have their claims incorrectly evaluated or that they would be sent back to their country of origin to suffer persecution.

In the latter part of this week, it is anticipated that the new treaty will be followed by the release of legislation declaring Rwanda a so-called safe nation. This law is intended to prevent legal challenges against the planned deportation flights.

Despite this, this will probably result in a fresh set of political and legal difficulties.

An immigration attorney at Harbottle & Lewis named Sarah Gogan stated that the government’s policy will be challenged due to Rwanda’s history of violations of human rights provisions.

“Rwanda is an unsafe country and this is not a quick fix,” added the politician. “You cannot in a matter of weeks or months reform a country and turn it into one with an impartial judiciary and administrative culture.”

Another “gimmick” was what Yvette Cooper, the spokesperson for the Labour Party’s home affairs department, called the most recent measures proposed by the administration.

Whether or not to design the law in a way that would avoid subsequent legal challenges is still up for debate by the administration.

Several members of the Conservative Party in parliament are putting pressure on the government to incorporate a “notwithstanding” clause into Rwanda’s policy. This clause would disapprove the domestic and international human rights commitments of the United Kingdom regarding Rwanda.

However, some politicians within the ruling party, such as Robert Buckland, have stated that such a move would be “foolish” and undermine the Good Friday Agreement, which is primarily responsible for ending three decades of carnage in Northern Ireland. This is because the European Convention on Human Rights supports the treaty.

Continue Reading

Africa

Madagascar leader wins presidential vote, constitutional court says

Published

on

On Friday, the High Constitutional Court of Madagascar certified Andry Rajoelina, the current President of Madagascar, to be the victor of the election a month ago, essentially granting him a third term in office.

Following the dismissal of several challenges submitted against the preliminary results by the electoral board, the court said that Rajoelina collected 58.96% of the votes that were cast.

Florent Rakotoarisoa, the chairman of the High constitutional court, stated that “Andry Rajoelina is elected as the president of the republic of Madagascar and is taking his functions as soon as the swearing (is conducted) comes to an end.”

The rejected challenge was submitted by the politician Siteny Randrianasoloniaiko, who received 14.39% of the vote, according to the court. This was one of the challenges that was denied.

Ten of the thirteen candidates chose not to participate in the election; nevertheless, their names were already on the ballot, so they could still divide the remaining votes. The court reported that the turnout was 46.35 percent.

The election on November 16 was preceded by weeks of demonstrations, during which the opposition accused Rajoelina of having fostered conditions that were unjust to the election.

The charges that the vote was rigged have been refuted by Rajoelina, and the army has issued a warning against any attempts to destabilize the country.

As far as the opposition is concerned, the voter turnout for the election was the lowest it has ever been in the country’s history.

Hajo Andrianainarivelo, a former minister who was one of the candidates who chose to abstain from voting, has committed to fight against what he has described as a lack of respect for the rules of the state and the tyranny of the people.

“The popular fight begins now,” he declared on Thursday referring to the ongoing conflict.

Rajoelina, now 49 years old, initially won power in a coup in 2009. After resigning from his position as the head of a transitional authority in 2014, he went on to win another election in 2018 and regain his position as president.

Continue Reading
Advertisement

Trending