As Afghanistan nears the one-year anniversary of the Taliban offensive and resulting takeover, the lives of Afghans under the current national governance have changed severely and drastically. Among the significant and drastic socio-cultural changes Afghans have endured over the past months, many have revolved around access to education, or lack thereof. When the Taliban assumed full power and control of the Afghan government in late 2021, among one of the new ordinances and policies implemented was eliminating access to secondary education for Afghan girls.
In January of 2022, a glimmer of hope appeared for Afghan female students when the Taliban announced that by March, they would be allowed to return to school. However, by the end of March 2022, the Taliban announced schools would not be re-opened to girls in the 6th grade and up. Girls who had already returned to their classrooms were told to go home. Thus far, the Taliban has not provided reasoning for their decision.
In the voids of Taliban power, between the fall of the Taliban regime in 2001 and the resurgence in 2021, enrollment relating to education soared in Afghanistan for all genders during those decades. The Taliban rule of the 1990s specifically prohibited education for girls, but for the past 20 years, female students in Afghanistan ran through school doors to take a seat in a classroom, eager to learn and conquer their futures.
But for nearly the last year, Afghan female students are again faced with restricted, if not entirely eliminated, paths and access to their education. They are unable to advance in their education and, as a result, are unable to make progress in their lives and plan for their futures.
While their male counterparts had been allowed to return to school since the takeover, young girls and women wait in suspense, in distress, and in heartbreak. It’s currently estimated that approximately 4 million Afghan children are not in school, 60% being girls.
In an anonymous letter from 2021, Serene (a pen name) wrote the following – “Since the Taliban took over Afghanistan and forbade us from going to school, girls like me have had to deal with the daily routine of adolescence without the excitement of life as a student. When I think about the future, no precise or clear picture can be seen. When I wake up in the morning I find no motivation to get out of bed.” Now, with this announcement from 2022, the sentiment of millions of Afghan girls remains the same.
After the Taliban announced their decision to refuse to let Afghan girls return to school, News cameras captured the tears and despair of female students once they became aware of the Taliban’s decision to reverse their access to education. “Why must they play with our feelings,” asks one student. “Is it a sin that we are girls? Is it a sin that we study?” asks another.
Malala Yousafzai, the young Afghan human rights activist whose crusade for female education in Afghanistan resulted in an assassination attempt on her life in 2012, said recently, “I had one hope… that Afghan girls walking to school would not be sent back home. But the Taliban did not keep their promise. They will keep finding excuses to stop girls from learning – because they are afraid of educated girls and empowered women.”
This decision has led to massive international outrage, as the United States abruptly cancelling formal discussions with the Taliban as a result, with a U.S. State Department spokesperson saying, “We have cancelled some of our engagements, and made clear that we see this decision as a potential turning point in our engagement.”
Since then, the streets have been flooded with protests by these very students across all of Afghanistan. Fatima, a young student captured in the middle of a recent protest, stated that Islam gives girls like her the right to study and learn, but it is the Taliban robbing them of that very right.
For now, the world remains with eyes watching as Afghan girls and women fight for their human right to education. Instead of filling classrooms, Afghans will fill the streets in protests until they are allowed to return to their havens of learning. “Schools should not be closed anymore because people can no longer tolerate such oppression,” says Madina Mahbobi of the Afghan Women’s Organization for Peace and Freedom. “We do not accept any excuse from the authorities in this regard, and the current position of the authorities to close schools above the 6th grade to girls has no legal or logical justification.”
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