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 assist of the women’ schooling. Since then, the Taliban has not made any progress on whether or not they’re keen to compromise
“Initially, we had been hopeful that they’d reopen faculties, however with the passage of time, we observed that, no, they’re doing one thing else. They only situation anti-women verdicts after every day,” Nazhand mentioned. “I do not assume that they’re keen to reopen faculties, the Taliban haven’t any downside with ladies’ faculties, however they need to exploit them politically. They need to proceed their ruling on society by banning ladies faculties. It’s of their curiosity to impose restrictions on girls as a result of they can not do it on males.”
After the US navy intervention of Afghanistan in late 2001 that ousted the Taliban from energy, the war-torn nation witnessed a collection of socioeconomic reforms and rebuilding applications. The post-Taliban structure, 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 working for president for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.
However the 4 many years of conflict and hostility inflicted large hurt to Afghanistan’s fundamental infrastructures, together with to the nation’s instructional property.
And even earlier than the Taliban seized energy on Aug. 15 final yr, a report by UNICEF discovered that Afghanistan had struggled with greater than 4.2 million kids out of college, 60% of whom had been ladies. Though the potential prices of not educating girls and boys alike are excessive when it comes to misplaced earnings, not educating ladies is particularly pricey due to the connection between instructional attainment and pupil delaying marriage and childbearing, collaborating within the workforce, making selections about their very own future, and investing extra within the well being and schooling of their very own kids later in life. The evaluation signifies that Afghanistan will probably be unable to regain the GDP misplaced through the transition and attain its true potential productiveness with out fulfilling ladies’ rights to entry and full secondary faculty schooling. UNICEF additionally estimated that If the present cohort of three million ladies had been capable of full their secondary schooling and take part within the job market, it might contribute at the very least $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s economic system.
A report by Amnesty Worldwide additionally says that the Taliban have prevented girls throughout Afghanistan from working.
“Most girls authorities staff have been informed to remain house, excluding these working in sure sectors akin 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 may enable 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 troublesome within the face of Taliban restrictions on their clothes and conduct, such because the requirement for ladies docs 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 mentioned. “The Taliban stored numerous girls in isolation and as an illiterate inhabitants; the end result was a paralyzed and backward society. We should not overlook that the Taliban are nonetheless affected by the unconventional and repressive mindset that they’d maintain 20 years in the past. We should not stay the ladies that we had been 20 years in the past, and we is not going to stay silent.”
Safety threats and acts of terrorism have additionally been a significant 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 at the very least 54 faculty graduates — amongst them had been 54 younger ladies. The assault marked the second lethal assault on schooling facilities within the nation because the Taliban had taken over energy.
