The Nobel Prize-winning education activist Malala Yousafzai has spoken out against the Taliban’s reversal of women’s rights to education in Afghanistan.

Yousafzai has expressed her despair over the Taliban’s “complete reversal” of women’s rights and education in Afghanistan, the Independent reported.

“Ten years ago, millions of Afghan girls were going to school,” she told an audience at the United Nations House in Abuja, Nigeria.

“One in three young women were enrolled in university. And now? Afghanistan is the only country in the world to ban girls and women from seeking education.

Yousafzai described how she experienced Taliban brutality when she was shot in the head by a Taliban gunman in 2012 for advocating for girls’ education.

“I was shot and nearly killed for speaking out against these injustices. I did not know if my first speech at the UN would be my last – my only chance to ask the world to send every girl to school,” Ms Yousafzai said.

Yousafzai urged the international community to “step forward more boldly” in assisting girls and women in Afghanistan.

“We must not allow the Taliban to take away the dreams of an entire generation,” she said. “We must not allow them to silence the voices of women and girls.”

Since the Taliban took control of the country, it issued some harsh and suppressive decrees which banned women and girls from attending secondary schools in March 2022 and subsequently barred women from attending universities and working with aid agencies in December last year.

Despite massive condemnation by the international community, the decrees still practised and restricted women from their fundamental human rights.