In July, the Taliban introduced a gathering of handpicked clerics to determine on the destiny of the schooling ban. However solely two clerics got here in help of the women’ schooling. Since then, the Taliban has not made any progress on whether or not they’re prepared to compromise
“Initially, we had been hopeful that they might reopen colleges, however with the passage of time, we seen that, no, they’re doing one thing else. They only challenge anti-women verdicts after every day,” Nazhand stated. “I do not suppose that they’re prepared to reopen colleges, the Taliban haven’t any drawback with women’ colleges, however they need to exploit them politically. They need to proceed their ruling on society by banning women colleges. It’s of their curiosity to impose restrictions on girls as a result of they can not do it on males.”
After the US military intervention of Afghanistan in late 2001 that ousted the Taliban from energy, the war-torn nation witnessed a sequence of socioeconomic reforms and rebuilding packages. The post-Taliban constitution, which was ratified in 2004, expanded girls’s rights to go to highschool, vote, work, serve in civic establishments, and protest. By 2009, girls had been operating for president for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.
However the 4 a long time of struggle and hostility inflicted huge hurt to Afghanistan’s primary infrastructures, together with to the nation’s instructional property.
And even earlier than the Taliban seized energy on Aug. 15 final 12 months, a report by UNICEF discovered that Afghanistan had struggled with greater than 4.2 million youngsters out of faculty, 60% of whom had been women. Though the potential prices of not educating girls and boys alike are excessive by way of misplaced earnings, not educating women is particularly pricey due to the connection between instructional attainment and scholar delaying marriage and childbearing, taking part within the workforce, making selections about their very own future, and investing extra within the well being and schooling of their very own youngsters later in life. The evaluation signifies that Afghanistan will probably be unable to regain the GDP misplaced in the course of the transition and attain its true potential productiveness with out fulfilling women’ rights to entry and full secondary faculty schooling. UNICEF additionally estimated that If the present cohort of three million women had been in a position to full their secondary schooling and take part within the job market, it might contribute a minimum of $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s financial system.
A report by Amnesty International additionally says that the Taliban have prevented girls throughout Afghanistan from working.
“Most ladies authorities staff have been informed to remain residence, apart from these working in sure sectors equivalent to well being and schooling,” the report states. “Within the personal sector, many ladies have been dismissed from high-level positions. The Taliban’s coverage seems to be that they’ll permit solely girls who can’t be changed by males to maintain working. Ladies who’ve continued working informed Amnesty Worldwide that they’re discovering it extraordinarily tough within the face of Taliban restrictions on their clothes and habits, such because the requirement for girls medical doctors to keep away from treating male sufferers or interacting with male colleagues.”
“Twenty years in the past, when the Taliban took management of Afghanistan, the very first thing they did was a ban on girls’s entry to schooling,” Nazhand stated. “The Taliban saved numerous girls in isolation and as an illiterate inhabitants; the result was a paralyzed and backward society. We should not neglect that the Taliban are nonetheless affected by the novel and repressive mindset that they might maintain 20 years in the past. We should not stay the ladies that we had been 20 years in the past, and we won’t stay silent.”
Safety threats and acts of terrorism have additionally been a serious concern to the scholars in Afghanistan. In late October, a suicide bomber attacked a category filled with over 500 college students in west Kabul, killing a minimum of 54 faculty graduates — amongst them had been 54 young girls. The assault marked the second lethal assault on schooling facilities within the nation for the reason that Taliban had taken over energy.
