By: Rukhshana Media
The Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education has announced the academic year will start with universities opening on March 6 and reaffirmed a ban on girls’ attendance.
Hafez Ziaullah Hashemi, the spokesman of the Ministry of Higher Education said on Wednesday that university lessons will start March 6, but only for male students.
Maryam Maruf Arwin, founder of the women’s activist movement Purple Saturdays, told Rukhshana Media that the announcement came as a fresh blow as there had been talk of a rift in the Taliban on the issue, and some hope that the ban would be overturned.
She says it has again brought despair to girls attending school as the nightmare scenario of their education having no future plays out.
Ms. Arwin says that Afghans did not expect girls and women to be deprived because of their gender. She pointed to the Taliban’s pledges to the people of Afghanistan and the international community with the Doha agreement that women’s rights would be recognized.
She says the experience of Afghan women under the Taliban is more like living a prison as they face widespread and persistent deprivation of freedom and violation of their autonomy.
Pointing to the history of the Taliban in the 1990s and the reasons the group has faced so much opposition, MS Arwin says their behavior and ideas have not changed when it comes to women.
“In the Taliban’s minds, women’s rights and freedoms begin at the mandatory hijab and childbearing and continue until cooking and making them sex slaves,” she says.
The evidence of violence against girls and women being on the rise shows that when girls are denied an education and opportunity to work, abuse abounds as they are forced into marriage, endure extreme domestic violence, and ultimately suffer from serious cases of mental illness, she says.
Ms Arwin says girls and women have no place or voice in a society ruled by the Taliban which further isolates them and drives them to more desperate actions such as suicide, which is also on the increase.
In the long run, Ms Arwin believes all society will pay the price, with the spread of illiteracy, abuse, terror and mental illness as a result of Taliban’s teachings about the female gender.
Students devastated and in despair
Female students are also reacting to the news of the Taliban announcement that they are not welcome to attend the new academic year, saying it is extremely destructive.
“For all the people of Afghanistan and the world, it is the peak of disappointment and regret that they are witnessing such barbaric acts that are unprecedented in any corner of the world,” says Sooda Rahmani, a sixth-semester student of Law and Political Science.
“We are slowly perishing. We are mentally tortured. What I feel today cannot be put into words.”
Ms Rahmani says the sadness her and her friends feel is beyond despair. “I say the same words – I’m so tired! We have waited too much! I’m fed up,” she says.
Fatima Mudassir, a fourth-semester student of economics, tells Rukhshana Media that she and all Afghan girls did not get to university easily, so the denial of access to their education is a deep pain. “We overcame one hundred-thousand and one problems. We studied hard to get to university and plan for our future,” she says.
“I finished school with so many challenges. After that, I fought with my father and brother to continue my education,” she says. “I fought against the traditional attitudes of my society. I endured poverty and economic problems and all the ups and downs of life. Finally, I succeeded in my favorite field.”
“When I started university, the roots of hope and desire sprouted in my heart and I studied my lessons with such high spirits and strong motivation and self-confidence. I even dreamed of the first female president of Afghanistan,” Ms Mudassir says. “I know that this is not exceptional among my contemporaries – we have all followed a similar path.”
But the arrival of the Taliban and the group’s persistent focus on depriving women of their rights has shattered girls and women all around Fatima. “It’s as if we have fallen from the sky to the bottom of the earth,” she says.
She says most of the women she knows are suffering with ambiguous health conditions and many are dealing with depression and mental illnesses. She says she is hearing of an increasing number of forced marriages and suicides of her peers.
Tarannom Saeedi, an Afghan women’s rights activist abroad, says that it’s clear the Taliban do not believe that women and girls have a presence in the community and can contribute to the country’s growth and prosperity just like men.
“This usurping terrorist group uses every crime they can against women and their rights. The future of Afghan women and girls and their fates have been taken hostage in the hands of a rigid group,” she says.
Ms Saeedi points out there is also not a single group with any authority or organization for Afghan women and girls to have a voice or to have their rights defended.
She warns the Taliban that turning Afghanistan into a country only for men will have disastrous consequences for Afghan society and culture in the long run, with future generations suffering the deeper impact of the Taliban’s misguided policies.
Mrs. Saeedi further says that in any society where women do not have an active presence will become sick and isolated.
