December 28, 2023

Afghan girls leave school with a heavy heart, not to return

topic:	Women's rights
located:	Afghanistan
editor:	Shadi Khan Saif

With heavy hearts and tearful eyes, thousands of more Afghan girls left their schools in December with no hopes of returning in the wake of the Taliban's brutal restrictive regime in the country. 

School doors shut on 11 December for Afghan girls finishing grade six - the highest level of education allowed to them in the war-ravaged country under Taliban rule.

Since snatching back their power in Kabul back in August 2021, the Taliban have gradually sidelined women and girls from public life. They closed down girls' schools above grade six, followed by the closure of universities nationwide. 

The young girls with enormous energy and aspirations were reportedly crying while bidding farewell to each other at the school doors for the last time. In social media posts, families of these kids - between the ages of 10 and 15 - said they were devastated.

"My female students were crying to death. I kept telling them not to cry and tried to assure them that the schools for girls above grade six would soon reopen. Still, they were devastated and had no hopes for the reopening of the schools", Shafiqa Khpalwak, an Afghan social activist, quoted a female teacher from Afghanistan narrating the state of the little girls. "So I cried with them, too", said the teacher.

Before the Taliban's rise to power, an official report said there were 18,765 public and private schools in operation with over three million girls enrolled. There were also more than 200,000 teachers, including 80,554 women.

Now, with no signs of the Taliban backtracking on their oppressive tactics, the end of this academic year is the third one with no girls allowed beyond grade six. The regime now ruling the country with an iron fist has been adamant despite international pressure to let the young girls continue their education, as well as the rest of the women, to join universities and pursue their dreams in different fields of life.

With meagre donor support, some isolated efforts to keep a window of opportunity for education open for girls are underway, particularly in Kabul. These efforts, mostly through underground community education centres and online courses, are a drop in the ocean and cannot fill the void of formal and nationwide free education for all. 

The world, particularly Western countries, shares the blame for the plight of millions of Afghan girls deprived of education after the US - Taliban deal in Qatar and the subsequent fall of the Afghan Republic. 

Muslim countries of the region and globally are equally to be blamed for their lack of interest and intervention as the Taliban continue to justify their gender-apartheid policy aimed at women and girls to be in line with their self-proclaimed Islamic Sharia ideology. They need to reclaim their ideology and give the girls in Afghanistan their fundamental right to proper education without any fear.

Image by WikiImages.

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