The Connection Between the Taliban, Girls, and Climate Change

With fears ramping up about the fate of women and girls in an Afghanistan now under Taliban rule, climate change likely seems very far from related to the outcome. But it isn’t.

When the Taliban ruled the country from 1996-2001, women were forbidden from working, and girls were barred from attending school or leaving the house without a male relative. So far, this time around, the group has said that it would be creating an “Afghan-inclusive Islamic government” — without being terribly specific about what the future will hold for women and girls.

On Monday, Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman, said that under the new government girls would be able go to class. “Schools will be open and the girls and the women, they will be going to schools, as teachers, as students,” he said. And on Tuesday, another spokesman told the press: “We assure the international community that there will be no discrimination against women, but, of course, within the frameworks we have.”

Yet women’s rights are already being curbed throughout the country, with some girls’ schools shuttered as of the end of July, according to the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, agreed.

“We are receiving chilling reports of severe restrictions on human rights throughout the country,” Guterres told the U.N. Security Council on Monday. “I am particularly concerned by accounts of mounting human rights violations against the women and girls of Afghanistan.”

Okay, but what does all this have to do with climate change?

Women are essential to changing the course of global warming. They often have a “deeper understanding of their immediate environment because of their experience in managing natural resources (water, forests, biodiversity and soil) as well as their involvement in climate-sensitive activities (such as farming) in most developing countries,” UNESCO writes.

Women also tend to manage affairs at home, and their leadership has been shown to result in sustainable practices both there and in the wider community. Critically, women’s participation in politics “has resulted in greater responsiveness to citizen’s needs, often increasing cooperation across party and ethnic lines and delivering more sustainable peace,” the U.N. reports. Women have proven to positively impact the outcome of climate projects. But how, exactly, are girls supposed to improve outcomes or even learn how to contribute to the fight against the climate crisis if they are banned from politics and, critically, from education?

Pakistani Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai — who was shot in the head by the Taliban in 2012 because she was advocating for girls’ education — laid it out plainly in March.

“Girls’ education, gender equality, and climate change are not separate issues," Yousafzai said at an online event by the British think-tank Chatham House. "Girls' education and gender equality can be used as solutions against climate change.”

“When we educate girls ... they can become farmers, conservationists, solar technicians, they can fill other green jobs as well,” she continued. “Problem-solving skills can allow them to help their communities to adapt to climate change.”

If girls are denied their human right to an education, it will be a devastating loss to Afghanistan on so many levels, including its suffering environment. But it will be to the detriment of the survival of humanity if Afghan women and girls are prevented from reaching their full potential as the world burns.