The Taliban are facing international condemnation after they announced on Wednesday that girls were not allowed to go to secondary school, despite their previous assurances.
“The refusal of education violates the human rights of women and girls,” said Michelle Bachelet, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. “Apart from their equal right to education, it leaves them more exposed to violence, poverty and exploitation.”
Samira Hamidi, an Amnesty International campaigner in Afghanistan, said: “This is a worst nightmare that is true for the women and girls from Afghanistan who have their future and all that they have hoped and worked for, of them in the past. Hamidi said the Taliban had “betrayed” the country by “depriving a generation of women and girls of their right to education”.
Bachelet said the decision was “of great concern at a time when the country is desperate to overcome various crises. Half of the dismissed Afghan population is counterproductive and unfair.
The surprise announcement came late Tuesday night. Many teachers and students found out only on Wednesday morning, the first day of the school year in Afghanistan, as the girls were preparing to return to class after a six-month break caused by the unrest in the country.
“Many excited girls were already waiting outside the school. They were here hours before their classes started. They were very happy and excited. Then we told them about the new order,” said a teacher in Kabul. “A lot of them started arguing. I had nothing to say to them. I left an hour ago. I cried.” At the end of the school day, the teacher said, some of the girls were still standing outside the building, unable to “move their legs to get back home”.
The girls have been banned from high school education in most of the country since the Taliban returned to power in mid-August 2021. Most universities opened early this year, but Taliban edicts on education were erratic and, while a handful of provinces continued. Education at all, most closed institutions for girls and women.
In the capital, Kabul, private schools and universities have been operating continuously, and the Taliban have said the girls will eventually be able to return to school. A statement from Afghanistan’s Ministry of Education earlier this week called on “all students” to come to school.
The U-turn is seen as a concession to the rural and deep mainstay of the hardline Taliban, who in many parts of the country are reluctant to send their girls to school.
“The leadership has not decided when and how to allow the girls to return to school,” said Waheedullah Hashmi, external relations and donor representative with the Taliban-led administration. While accepting that urban centers mostly support the education of girls, he said that much of rural Afghanistan was opposed, especially tribal Pashtun regions.
“In some rural areas, a brother will fire a brother in the city if he finds out he’s leaving his girls in school,” Hashmi said, adding that the Taliban leadership is trying to decide how to educate girls more old than 11 open. nationwide.
The US Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Tom West, said in a tweet: “For the future of the country and its relations with the international community, I would urge the Taliban to honor their commitments to their people.”
Meanwhile, Jan Egeland, Secretary General of the Norwegian Refugee Council, said the NRC remains hopeful that the Ministry of Education’s announcement will be reversed.
Bérénice Van Den Driessche, a Kabul-based campaigner for the organization, said: “We will continue the dialogue with the Ministry of Education to understand where the blockades are and see if we can provide support to open these blockades.” She said she could see the authorities reversing their stance if the conditions regarding gender mixing were met. “We are definitely hopeful and very much expect a return to the previous position and the previous commitment to enable the girls to return,” she said.
But girls and young women feel uncertain about their future. “We did everything the Taliban asked for in Islamic dress and they promised that girls could go to school and now they have broken their promise,” said Mariam Naheebi, a journalist associated with the Associated Press. Press spoke in the Afghan capital. Naheebi protested for women’s rights, saying, “They were not honest with us.”
Afghan television stations broadcast interviews with crying girls as they found out they were not allowed to participate in the class.
“I woke up at 2 o’clock last night to prepare for the morning and it was very difficult for me to wake up very early to get here to school,” said one girl. “When I arrived, I was so happy, but my teacher was crying and I did not know why. When she told us the news, everyone started crying.
Another said, “We are human. We have rights. Why are they playing with our future? We just want to continue our studies. Is it a crime to be a girl? Is it a crime we want to study?
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