Ziba Balkhi
Hussain has only attended a madrasa or religious school in Afghanistan for a year and a half, but in that short time, the 16-year-old’s family says, he’s become aggressive and suspicious of women. Previously a sociable teenager, he now leaves the room when they have visitors and recently, he’s started telling his mother and older sisters what to do.
None of the women has a clear idea of what Hussain is being taught at the madrassa, but they know enough to be worried.
“Sometimes he even tells my mother what she should and shouldn’t wear. At times, he hardly allows us to attend weddings or go to the market,” says Hussain’s sister Shamsia, 18, who adds that her father goes along with this.
Shamsia says she dreamed of being a doctor before she was forced to leave her school when the Taliban returned to power and banned girls from accessing secondary education. Now their mother worries about what will become of her daughters when she’s no longer around to protect them from her own son. “How will he treat his sisters? How strict will he become?” she says.
Another sister, Maryam, tells how Hussain was recruited to the madrasa by the mullah at their local mosque in the northeastern city of Faizabad. Their father came home after Friday prayers and told them the plan.
Hussain is expected to study there for seven years to obtain a qualification equivalent to a bachelor’s degree. They’ve heard him say that universities are a “place of sin for both men and women, because men become sinful when they see women, and women themselves are a source of corruption.”
Since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban have rapidly expanded the establishment of religious schools. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s spokesperson, said recently there were more than 20,000 religious schools operating across the country, providing religious instruction to more than two million people. The Taliban ministry of education said previously that at least one jihadi madrasa with a capacity of more than 1,000 students has been established in each province of the country.
Madrasas in Afghanistan have traditionally taught Islamic texts in Arabic, including jurisprudence (fiqh), Qur’anic studies, and hadith (Islamic tradition). They are open to adults as well as children, and enrolment has grown significantly in the last five years. But not much is known about the new ones being set up by the Taliban, who refer to them as jihadist madrasas.
That has given rise to concerns about children attending these schools and the risk of extremism and radical fundamentalism.
Research published in December 2024 by the Afghanistan Human Rights Centre concluded that the Taliban’s jihadist schools have had a dangerous impact on the thinking of young people. The organisation said that by increasing the number of these religious schools, the Taliban are seeking to strengthen their ideological rule.
Reporting by Rukhshana Media found that Hussain’s family is far from unique. Women and girls around Afghanistan are having similar experiences as the Taliban authorities roll out religious schools.
In Sar-e Pol in northern Afghanistan one young girl told us her brothers now believed girls shouldn’t be educated at all. Aged 12, she said her brothers, who attend religious schools, made her leave school even before she’d finished primary.
“My brothers say, ‘you’ve grown up now, learn how to cook and wash dishes. Soon you’ll go to your husband’s home and if you don’t know how to keep house, we’ll be blamed’.”
Another young girl from the same province, Omida, 13, said her older brother stopped her from attending school recently, telling her that it was wrong for a young girl to be out of the house so much. Omida’s mother, a widow, confirmed her eldest son, who is 27, has been attending a Taliban religious school for two and a half years.
“My son has become a completely different person. For two and a half years, he has been taking part in Taliban propaganda activities, attending the madrasa, and spending evenings with friends who are also Taliban. His character, habits, and thinking have completely changed,” she said.
“He is very strict with his sisters. My daughters aren’t even 15 yet, but because of him, they wear the full-body veil.”
For mothers of girls, the situation can be heartbreaking. Some hoped their daughters would have opportunities than they were never given; others who benefited from the opening of education to girls never imagined that this would be taken away before their daughters could also benefit.
–‘The first victims are girls’–
It’s not just younger men and boys who are affected – older men are also attending madrasas. Roya, a 31-year-old nurse who works at a clinic in Sar-e Pol, told Rukhshana Media her father pulled her younger sister out of school after he began regularly attending a Taliban religious school in late 2024.
“At first, my brother attended Taliban propaganda events and then began going to the madrasa. Gradually, he led my father down the same path. Now both of them consider a young girl going to school a sin,” she said.
They have also encouraged her husband to prevent her from working, said Roya, who had the opportunity to attend school and university before the Taliban returned to power and now worries that families are increasingly influenced by Taliban ideology.
“Their schools have multiplied so much, and the Taliban present religion in such a way that a woman is created only for the home and has no other rights,” she said.
Under the new system, women and girls are only permitted to attend religious schools once they reach secondary age. It’s hard to know exactly what they are being taught in religious schools, which operate under strict sex segregation. Rukhshana Media also spoke to relatives of one woman who recently became a student at a Taliban religious school in Herat.
They say she has completely changed. Until about two years ago, she worked as a beautician; now she considers beautification sinful and says a woman’s face must always be concealed.
The woman’s niece Soodaba says her aunt now frequently reproaches them about their clothing and behaviour, telling them not to wear nail polish or artificial nails.
Women’s rights activists say the Taliban’s religious schools are systematically reproducing and reinforcing views that confine women’s roles to the domestic sphere.
“The Taliban’s real aim in establishing these schools is to change people’s mindsets—to convince them that women should not study, work, or participate in society,” said Fatima Behzad, a women’s rights activist.
“The Taliban teach children—especially boys—from an early age that women’s education and social presence are unnecessary or wrong. When mullahs in schools preach such ideas, people in traditional areas trust them more, because levels of education and independent religious inquiry are low. Men accept these ideas without question—and unfortunately, the first victims are girls.”
Note: Due to security concerns for sources, some details have been omitted and names have been changed.
