By Mehreen Rashidi
Basira’s* dreams were beyond the stars – literally. She wanted to be an astronaut. But she’s only graduated from the ninth grade. Since that small milestone, she’s been housebound under Taliban rule.
“It’s been three years since Nawruz hasn’t been a blessing for me. My heart is bleeding. I don’t know what to do,” Basira said as the Persian New Year passed and the 1403 solar year began.
“I’m aimless during the day. I don’t know how to pass my time,” she said.
I felt so sad hearing Basira’s words. I had paid her family a Nawruz visit at their home in the Kart-e-Zera’at area of Mazar-i-Sharif in Balkh province. The sadness has lingered in me in the days since.
The 19-year-old had once been a dedicated student, a top student in her school with big aspirations for her future.
She took particular interest in physics with the goal of one day reaching the International Space Station.
The Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and the subsequent shutdown of girls’ and women’s freedoms has left her in significant shock, her father Shafi said.
“Even when the private tuition centers were still open, no matter how much I begged her to go learn English, she wouldn’t go. She doesn’t even read her favorite books anymore. We are also devastated just like her,” Shafi said.
He said Basira’s isolation has also meant she talks less and less. But as her father discussed her not opening her books anymore, Basira interjected: “Here, when I’m not allowed to go to school or university, should I expect that one day they’ll allow me to board a spaceship and go to space?”
Shafi fell silent, his expression looked helpless. I also didn’t have the courage to try to say anything hopeful about her future.
It’s a situation being repeated in the homes and hearts of girls across Afghanistan.
Another of my former students Batool* was a cheerful and lively sixth-grade student two years ago. She particularly loved her Dari/Farsi language lessons. I enjoyed her enthusiasm in my class. But the Taliban’s rules meant she could not continue classes beyond sixth grade.
During the past winter, I saw her in a neighborhood tailor shop. Her face was not that of a young teen, instead she looked like a longtime working mother, drawn and furrowed.
I sent her a concerned message on Facebook. Batool replied, but her answer was devastating.
“I’ve forgotten all my lessons. I haven’t opened a book or notebook [since I finished sixth grade]. I’ve learned tailoring. Now I’m busy sewing clothes,” she said.
“Honestly, hearing the names of subjects and schools now bothers me. I am not in contact with my classmates. I don’t want to have any connection.”
Former high school principal Maryam Karimi in Mazar-i-Sharif said many girls have distanced themselves from education or their connection to it in the wake of the Taliban’s restrictions.
The prospect of their efforts going nowhere is deeply painful.
“Compensating for having no education is very difficult and even impossible for society, especially for the girls themselves,” Ms Karimi said.
She said she has seen an emergence of “hatred and resentment” in her former students, where school evokes feelings of inadequacy and humiliation in them.
Private primary school director Mahdi Afzali* in Mazar-i-Sharif said the number of girls attending primary school is also dwindling.
“More than half of the fifth-grade girls from last year haven’t come back. We know they are still living here, but they lack the motivation to come,” he said.
Mr Afzali said the hopelessness that secondary schools will ever reopen is behind the lack of attendance.
He said his efforts to convince families and students to return to primary school have fallen short as he cannot give any assurance that it will be worthwhile.
Reaction to the ban
International reaction to the Taliban’s school closures has been ignored by the de facto rulers for years.
In a Nawruz statement, the United Nation’s Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) called the girls’ education ban “unjustifiable and damaging”, and urged the Taliban to end the ban.
“As Afghanistan’s new school year begins, it is now more than 900 days since girls aged 12+ have been barred from attending school & university,” the statement said.
“Education for all is essential for peace & prosperity.”
Amnesty International also reiterated its call for the Taliban to allow all girls to attend school.
“Today is the start of the new school year in Afghanistan, but girls above grade six are banned from education. This is unjustifiable and in violation of fundamental human rights to education,” it said.
“The Taliban must allow girls of all ages to attend school and stop using cynical pretexts to further its discriminatory agenda.”
The Special Representative for Women and Human Rights in Afghanistan Rina Amiri has described the ongoing deprivation of Afghan girls from education as heartbreaking.
She said during a meeting last week that while school gates are opening for the new year in Afghanistan, girls are once again unable to attend.
She said that what is happening in Afghanistan is unacceptable in any country with a majority Muslim population and within the framework of Islamic principles, and it has been rejected repeatedly at the global level.
She added that the consequences of the Taliban’s restrictions not only affect women and girls but also the entire population of Afghanistan.
Former President of Afghanistan Hamid Karzai, who lives in Kabul, also repeated his call on the Taliban to reopen the gates of schools and universities to girls.
He stated in a post on X that typically the first days of the new school year are like celebratory days for our girls and boys.
“Unfortunately, it has been nearly three years since girls in the country have been deprived of education and cannot go to school and university, learn knowledge, and consequently serve their families and their country,” he posted on X.
He said learning knowledge is the path to survival, growth, honor, and liberation of any human society, and urged the Taliban to save the country from the need for foreign aid by opening the gates of schools and universities to girls.
Chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation in the former Afghan government Abdullah Abdullah also expressed his hope in a message, published before Nawruz, that the gates of schools and universities will be opened to girls and opportunities for work will be provided for women.
“We expect that in the new academic year, the gates of schools and universities will be opened to girls, and work opportunities will be provided for women with dignity, who constitute half of our society,” he posted on X.
Three dark years
The Taliban took control of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021. In the initial weeks of its rule all schools and educational centres had been closed in part to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On September 17 2021, the Taliban announced schools would reopen, but it was clear it would only be for boys.
“As part of the gradual start of the educational process, it is hereby announced to all primary schools and high schools for boys to commence their classes from September 18, 2021,” the statement said.
Months later, the Taliban declared girls high school would reopen after Nawruz in 2022.
On March 23, 2022, just before the school bells rang for class to begin, the girls who had been stuck at home for months, who were eagerly waiting outside the school gates, received word that the Taliban had revoked its decision to open high schools to girls.
In December 2022, the Taliban also banned girls from attending university.
According to United Nations children’s fund Unicef, the Taliban’s school ban has impacted more than 1.4 million girls in Afghanistan.
Note*: Names have been changed due to security reasons.
