In today`s Afghanistan, a 14-year-old girl does not die from bullets, but from the absence of opportunity-not in a terrorist attack, but in the systematic silence of empty classrooms. Her school stands open, her desk awaits her, her blackboard is blank-yet the girls are gone. Why? Because an order was issued: it is not the bodies of girls that are banned, but their futures.

This is not a physical genocide-it is a cultural genocide: a deliberate annihilation in which victims are not turned to ash, but rendered non-reproducible-a generation that will never become doctors, writers, teachers, or engineers, not due to incapacity but through an organized suppression of their potential.

Human Rights Alliance: Taliban Policies Meet the Definition of Cultural Genocide

According to AnsarPress, the Afghan Human Rights Activists` Alliance warned this week that Taliban policies-ranging from the ban on girls` education to the purging of teachers and rewriting of history-can no longer be dismissed as mere "religious policy." They now meet all legal criteria of cultural genocide: the intentional destruction of a group`s intellectual capacity, social identity, and access to knowledge in order to replace it with an exclusive ideological system.

The Goal: To Destroy Talent, Not Just to Deny Schooling

When the closure of schools becomes part of an ideological project, it is no longer about infrastructure or curriculum delays.

The Alliance`s statement, issued on Monday, November 17, 2025 (26 Aqrab 1404), asserts that Taliban actions in education are explicitly framed within the group`s own internal documents as part of the "consolidation of the Islamic Emirate."

Girls` enrollment in public universities has been completely banned.

Meanwhile, religious education for boys has expanded with special funding.

This systemic disparity shows that the goal is not limiting access, but eliminating a future ideological rival-the young, educated, women-centered class capable of challenging the Taliban`s legitimacy through awareness of history, rights, and the modern world.

From Textbooks to Libraries: Dismantling the Chain of Knowledge

In the legal definition of cultural genocide, one key indicator is the destruction of the transmission of knowledge-a process being executed in Afghanistan on multiple levels:

1. Denial of access - banning girls from secondary and higher education.

2. Content alteration - removing female historical figures and replacing "Modern History" with "History of the Caliphate."

3. Silencing public discourse - closing student publications, literary festivals, and public libraries.

4. Purging educators - especially educated women who could have served as role models.

In such a structure, a girl not only loses the right to study; she loses the model, the text, the space, and even the right to think freely-the very elements needed to shape an independent mind.

 "A Crime Against Humanity" Without Bloodshed

The Human Rights Activists` Alliance emphasizes that this practice aligns with Article II(c) of the 1948 Genocide Convention and Article 7 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC).

According to these documents, acts intended to destroy, wholly or in part, the cultural identity of a group constitute a crime-even if they do not involve killing. Likewise, any state-driven, systematic attack against a civilian population can be prosecuted as a crime against humanity.

Within this framework, the systematic deprivation of 3.5 million girls and young women from education-based on ideological decrees rather than technical necessity-is no longer an "education policy" but a structured crime against humanity.

The Silent Genocide: When Empty Classrooms Replace Mass Graves

Unlike physical genocide, cultural genocide requires no trenches or executions. It suffices for classrooms to remain empty, books to be censored, and teachers to stay silent.

In this form of annihilation, the victims are not killed in a day-they are slowly rendered incapable over decades, and that is precisely what is unfolding in Afghanistan today.

If the international community continues to treat this merely as a "women`s issue" or a matter of "national sovereignty," rather than as a crime against humanity and the future of mankind, it will not only fail Afghanistan`s young generation but will also undermine the very foundations of universal human rights.