Pakistani filmmaker: ‘Child marriage hinders girls from achieving their potential’

The Taliban has said they want to allow girls to continue attending school. That does not mean, however, an education in the Western sense of the word.

In an interview with DW, Oscar-winning Pakistani filmmaker Sharmeen Obaid Chinoy spoke about her new animated film, "Sitara: Let Girls Dream," on the issue of child marriage. She says that some 12 million girls in the world are not able to reach their potential due to early marriages.

Six months after the Taliban retook Afghanistan, FRANCE 24 spoke to former Afghan president Hamid Karzai, who remains in the country. Karzai strongly criticised the Biden administration's recent decision to unfreeze Afghan assets but divide the funds between aid to Afghanistan and victims of the 9/11 attacks, saying the funds "belong to the Afghan people". He also said he believed the Taliban would eventually allow girls to return to school, since doing so is "absolutely necessary for the well-being" of Afghanistan.

A priest who abused children and adolescents over many years has been handed a 12-year jail sentence by a Cologne court. The archdiocese where he worked has denied any responsibility.

Forced marriage is illegal in Burkina Faso, but remains common and often involves girls under 18. A shelter in the city of Kaya offers an escape for girls keen to continue their education

The Taliban has sparked outrage and concern among rights groups, after it reversed stance and closed secondary schools for girls across Afghanistan. Thousands of young students were sent home, confused and worried about their future.

GirlZOffMute's Angel Onyi Unigwe, a well-known child actress in Nigeria, has been figuring out who is bullying girls in schools. Some teen girls from various schools in Lagos blame boys and teachers. They told her that bullying had affected their self-esteem. Have you ever been bullied, and if so, how did you manage it?

Afghanistan is heading back to the pre-2001 dark days of the Taliban, and Western powers were naive if they ever thought this wouldn't be the case. That's the view of Heather Barr, associate women's rights director at Human Rights Watch. As women are told to cover their faces in public again and female television presenters are told to do the same, she spoke to us on Perspective about the how the Taliban are rolling back women's rights and what, if anything, the West can do about it. "Life has become a prison for most women and girls," she told us.

For more than nine months, Afghan girls over the age of 11 have been prohibited from going to high school. The Taliban have not reneged on the ban they imposed on taking power last August, despite their initial promise to do so. In the western city of Herat, FRANCE 24's reporters followed one teacher who hopes that her former students will be able to continue their education. They also met a teacher who is defying the ban by giving clandestine lessons. Meanwhile, some fathers are trying to convince the authorities to reopen girls' schools for their daughters.

Despite repeated calls on the Taliban to allow girls to attend classes again, the group still has yet to answer. Netizens have taken to the web under the #LetAfghanGirlsLearn campaign to demand back the right to study.

A community group in rural Zimbabwe is making reusable sanitary towels so that girls don't have to miss school when they have their period. The Chiedza Community Welfare Trust, in Zimbabwe's Mutasa District, started sewing cloth sanitary pads when founder Gladys Mukaratirwa realized that local girls were missing school every month because they couldn't afford disposable hygiene products.

Twenty-year-old Mitchell Chivare hurriedly packs the kit, as she readies for the bat and ball game at a nearby school.