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 might reopen faculties, however with the passage of time, we observed that, no, they’re doing one thing else. They only problem 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 women’ faculties, however they need to exploit them politically. They need to proceed their ruling on society by banning women faculties. It’s of their curiosity to impose restrictions on ladies 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 sequence of socioeconomic reforms and rebuilding applications. The post-Taliban structure, which was ratified in 2004, expanded ladies’s rights to go to high school, vote, work, serve in civic establishments, and protest. By 2009, ladies had been working for president for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.
However the 4 a long time of battle and hostility inflicted huge hurt to Afghanistan’s primary infrastructures, together with to the nation’s academic 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 kids 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 expensive due to the connection between academic attainment and pupil 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 kids later in life. The evaluation signifies that Afghanistan shall be unable to regain the GDP misplaced throughout 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 no less than $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s financial system.
A report by Amnesty Worldwide additionally says that the Taliban have prevented ladies throughout Afghanistan from working.
“Most girls authorities workers have been informed to remain residence, excluding these working in sure sectors resembling well being and schooling,” the report states. “Within the non-public sector, many ladies have been dismissed from high-level positions. The Taliban’s coverage seems to be that they’ll enable solely ladies who can’t be changed by males to maintain working. Girls who’ve continued working informed Amnesty Worldwide that they’re discovering it extraordinarily troublesome 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 ladies’s entry to schooling,” Nazhand mentioned. “The Taliban stored a lot of ladies in isolation and as an illiterate inhabitants; the end 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 is not going to 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 no less than 54 faculty graduates — amongst them had been 54 younger women. The assault marked the second lethal assault on schooling facilities within the nation for the reason that Taliban had taken over energy.
