Girls from Afghanistan, who are involved in robotics (all-girls robotics team), are trying to flee the country because of the Taliban.
“These girls are extremely terrified,” New York-based international human rights lawyer Kimberley MotleyCanadian Broadcast News on Sunday. The Afghan girls who are into robotics want to travel to Canada to complete their education, and Motley is trying to help them.
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“They are in Herat, where they are now removing girls from the universities,” Motley said. “They are telling girls not to go back to university. Women are showing up at work and being kicked out. They are watching in tears as their city collapses.”
The Taliban captured the girls' hometown of Herat, Afghanistan's third-largest city, as they approached the country's capital, Kabul. Taliban fighters took control of Kabul on Sunday, eventually taking over the entire country.
Afghan tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob started the Afghan Girls Robotics Team in 2017. Mahboob leads the Digital Citizen Fund , which runs courses for girls in STEM and robotics.
The girls who make up the All-girls robotics team are between the ages of 12 and 18 and have overcome war and other hardships to pursue their love of engineering and robotics and make their nation proud. The team has made headlines around the world as a symbol of a more progressive Afghanistan.
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In 2018, Afghanistan's all-girls robotics team won a silver medal at an international robotics competition. Other teams competing in the competition had four months to build their robots, but the Afghan girls, due to some difficulties, had only two weeks to build and ship their creation to Washington.
During the coronavirus pandemic, the team worked on a low-cost ventilator using old car parts.
Motley says she fears for the girls' future now that Afghan President Ashraf Ghani has reportedly fled the country, leaving the Taliban in power.
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“Unfortunately, what's been happening since last week is that the Taliban are literally going door to door and taking girls out and forcing them to become brides. We're very concerned. This could also happen to these girls from Afghanistan who are into robotics and want to be engineers, they want to be in the AI community. They dare to dream, to succeed.“.
Source: CNET
