Five members of the Afghan all-girl robotics team have received a warm welcome in Mexico on Tuesday evening. The country has pledged to shelter Afghan women and girls in the time of need. The robotics team, which worked on an open-source and low-cost ventilator during the COVID-19 outbreak in Herat Province, left Afghanistan as it felt there was an uncertain future looming at home.
After the Taliban militant group takes over the country this month, several members of an internationally recognised all-girl robotics team were attempting to flee the country. Five of the girls, youngest of them being 14 years old, were able to leave Kabul and reach Mexico on Tuesday. Mexican Deputy Foreign Minister Martha Delgado took to her Twitter and assured that the girls have been given "the warmest welcome" at Mexico City's international airport. They requested anonymity since they fear for the safety of the families that remain under Taliban control. A few other members of the robotics team landed in Qatar recently.
This week, many other members of the team were rescued by a 60-year-old Oklahoma woman, Allyson Reneau. She reportedly first met the girls at a Humans to Mars summit in Washington DC in May 2019 and seeing their condition under the Taliban regime she decided to help them escape the country.
The all-girls squad made headlines in 2017 when they started fighting inequality in the western city of Herat in Afghanistan. They were twice denied travel visas to the United States when they wanted to compete at an international robotics competition. Later, their entry was approved and the girls took part in the FIRST Global Challenge, competing against more than 150 countries. The girls subsequently uploaded more than 20 games on digital app stores in 2018, according to Reuters and won the Entrepreneur Award at the Robotex festival in Tallinn, Estonia, the biggest robotics festival in Europe. In March, they designed a low-cost ventilator for treating coronavirus patients.
Meanwhile, the Taliban insurgents, which previously barred girls from going to schools and women from working when they ruled Afghanistan in the late 1990s, has this time promised a more liberal outlook towards women's rights and education of girls.
Feature Image Credit: Martha Delgado/Twitter
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