Empowerment through football - The transformative impact of sport

In some religions and cultures, young women playing football is practically unthinkable. The Scoring Girls project shows how the sport is helping young women in Germany and Iraq to overcome anxieties. Hanover-born Tuğba Tekkal, daughter of Kurdish-Yazidi immigrants, defied all the odds to become a professional footballer in the Bundesliga. Now a coach, she founded the Scoring Girls project to offer girls and young women the opportunity to boost their self-esteem. The sport and its team-oriented nature can have therapeutic benefits for the budding sportswomen - many of whom have experienced racism in their everyday lives or faced the trauma of being a refugee. Maisa and Maisun had to flee Iraq with their parents to escape the horrors of Islamic State rule. In Germany, the Scoring Girls project gave the two sisters a long-forgotten feeling of freedom.

Taliban reverses order on opening schools for girls

The Taliban asked authorities to shutter girls out of middle and high schools in Afghanistan on Wednesday, according to notice by the Ministry of Education. "We inform all girls high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next order,"

Taliban schools U-turn 'a devastating day' for Afghan girls - Malala Yousafzai

Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai has told the BBC that the Taliban will continue to make excuses to prevent girls from learning beyond primary school. Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021, only girls’ primary schools - along with all boys’ schools - have remained open in most of Afghanistan. Girls’ secondary schools were due to open on Wednesday, but the Taliban has reversed its decision saying a ruling is still to be made on the uniforms that girls must wear. Speaking to BBC World News' Yalda Hakim, Ms Yousafzai said the Taliban is envisioning an Afghanistan where we do not have educated women.

Afghanistan: The teenage girls returning to school under the Taliban

 Female education - or the lack of it - has been seen as one of the biggest obstacles to the Taliban being officially recognised as Afghanistan's new government.

The Taliban have told secondary schools to open only for boys, but say their restrictions on girls studying are "temporary" in order to ensure learning environments are "safe" for them.

International agencies say it's difficult to build up an accurate picture of the situation around the country, but the BBC's World Affairs Editor, John Simpson, met young students and their teacher in the ancient city of Bamiyan to find out what's happening to girls' education there.

Taliban ban girls from secondary schools, close Women's Ministry

 

As the Taliban seized control of more and more regions of Afghanistan, many women and girls began to fear for their future. The country's new rulers no longer allow boys and girls to attend schools together.