ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s State Minister for Law Aqeel Malik on Sunday placed the rights of Afghan women and the collective responsibility of the Muslim world to ensure them at the heart of the agenda of a two-day Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) summit in Islamabad, highlighting the plight of women in the landlocked country.
Pakistan is hosting delegates from 57 OIC member states to review progress on women’s rights, share national policies and adopt new frameworks at the 9th OIC Ministerial Conference on Women, being held in Islamabad on July 12-13 under the theme of "Socio-Economic and Political Empowerment of Women in the OIC Countries: Challenges and the Way Forward."
Since returning to power in 2021, the Taliban have barred women from studying beyond primary school, banned them from visiting public parks, and systematically erased them from the judiciary and public offices through a series of draconian restrictions.
In an exclusive interview with Arab News, the Pakistani state minister noted that Afghan diplomatic representatives were expected to attend the summit, underscoring the gravity of the restrictions facing women and girls in Afghanistan since the Taliban's return to power.
"You really need to see the plight of those girls in Afghanistan because they are banned from attending schools and classes. This is an alarming situation," he said, emphasizing that the OIC must leverage its collective voice to push for a "change."
"If we speak of women’s empowerment... then this [the situation in Afghanistan] is one of the biggest challenges."
The ban on secondary education for girls, imposed in September 2021, has already deprived 2.2 million Afghan girls of secondary education as of 2025, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF). If the ban persists until 2030, this number could rise to more than 4 million.
Malik was confident that the final resolution of the OIC summit would explicitly address the issue.
“Certainly, the resolution that comes out of this conference will highlight the plight of the young girls in Afghanistan who are being kept away from schools and colleges and books and education,” he said.
Reflecting on the significance of the event, he described the conference as a "momentous time" for Pakistan’s global diplomatic standing, stressing that the discourse must move beyond rhetoric and focus on practical integration of women into mainstream socio-economic roles.
"Women, if you speak religiously as well, have been given many rights within our religious scriptures. We really need to act upon those, inculcate them in our daily lives, and provide women with that respect, that dignity, and that inclusion," he noted.
The conference is featuring discussions on regional and global best practices to empower women.
"What we expect to achieve from this is a way forward and a collective resolve within the OIC countries, the best practices that they are following and the issues that they are faced with or the challenges they might be faced with and how we can actually overcome those, because this is a shared responsibility amongst all of the OIC countries," the Pakistani state minister said.
Addressing the progress of women in the region, Malik highlighted the pivotal role of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 in demonstrating what is possible within the Muslim world.
"With Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030, there have been a lot of positive changes over the past several years, and women are now in the mainstream departments," he said, adding that Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are working jointly to set a benchmark for other OIC nations.
"We are trying to work on those policies that are in line with our principles... and paving the way for other OIC member countries to follow."
The Pakistani state minister said women were taking lead in many areas in the Muslim world, but there was still a need to do more to integrate them across all sectors.
"If you look at the Muslim world and more specifically the OIC countries, women are taking lead in many sectors, whether that's technology, whether that's the financial sector... and also with regards to being present in any and digital economy and they are there across all of these sectors," he said.
"[But] when we speak of parity, when we speak of mainstreaming and especially with regards to women, then we need to include them in all walks of life, in all sectors that are there and really not just any sort of, you know, token inclusion. We need to actually have meaningful inclusion."
