Pakistani Nobel Laureate Malala Yousafzai has called on the Taliban leadership in Afghanistan to re-open secondary schools for girls with immediate effect. She put forward this demand in an open letter addressed to the new rulers of the war-torn nation.

“To the Taliban authorities, reverse the de factor ban on girls’ education and re-open girls’ secondary schools immediately,” Yousafzai and other Afghan women rights activists wrote in the open letter. The Pakistani activist was shot in the head by Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) militants in her hometown of Swat Valley in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2012 for being the promoter and supporter of female education. Her open letter comes after a month since the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan. Since then, the Taliban has maintained that they will be allowing girl education. However, they have allowed only boys education institutions to open.