Rukhshana Media reporters
When the Taliban banned girls from attending school, Mina* knew she had to do something to keep her three daughters in education. For months, she searched for a secret school that would take them. Then one day soon after they started attending, her youngest daughter came home looking pale and scared. She’d been stopped in the street by Afghanistan’s feared morality police and warned not to leave the house alone again.
Ever since that day nearly three years ago, Mina, 42, and her husband have taken turns to escort their daughters to school, wait several hours for them to finish their lessons, then take them home again. It’s a huge sacrifice for a busy family, but it’s worth it to keep their daughters in education – a basic human right that Afghan girls are now deprived of once they pass primary school age.
“When my daughters held books and notebooks again, I was so happy that I told myself I would do whatever was necessary,” said Mina.
“It is very hard. But if my daughters are unhappy, what use is comfort to me?”
Afghanistan’s ban on girls attending school has so far deprived 2.2 million girls of education according to the United Nations. Online learning and religious schools are now the only educational options openly available to girls outside of the clandestine underground schools that have been set up to allow girls to continue in education. The Taliban have taken a strict stance when these schools are discovered, shutting them down and sometimes arresting the people behind them.
Rukhshana Media has spoken to around a dozen families about the sacrifices they have made to keep their girls in education since the ban was implemented more than four years ago. These parents have given their all to ensure their daughters stay in school, in some cases selling everything they own, going into debt, or even leaving the country.
Golshah*, a 53-year-old single mother of five from Sar-e Pol province, told Rukhshana she sold all her jewellery and mortgaged her land so she could send her adult daughter to Iran to continue her studies in law.
Golshah, who also has four sons, lost her husband years ago and has carried the burden of raising her children alone ever since.For the past two years, she has supported herself and her children by taking in tailoring, rug-weaving, embroidery, and other handicrafts.
“My daughter was withering away before my eyes. At night, she would cry and tear at her clothes. I could no longer bear to see her like that,” she said. “I had to mortgage everything I had—sell my gold and even my mother’s jewellery.”
“Sometimes I get tired of the pains in my back and legs and I decide to stop this work, but then I ask myself what will happen to my daughter’s education and university. I want her to complete her master’s degree as well. If I have to, I will even sell my house.”
Rahila* says she moved from her home in Bamiyan province to Kabul solely so that her daughters, both in their 20s, could attend an underground school. She had to beg her husband but finally he agreed. It hasn’t been easy for either of them – they live in a small house in a poor neighbourhood of the capital and her husband has struggled to find work. But she’s sure they made the right call.
“Sometimes their father becomes frustrated because he cannot find work and asks why I forced him to come to Kabul,” she said. “But when he sees the girls studying eagerly, all our hardships fade away.”
Some parents have gone even further to ensure their daughters can stay in education. Two years ago, Golshan* moved to Iran with her husband Ainullah* and their 13-year-old daughter Farishta*, who had just completed sixth grade – the last year of primary — and was no longer allowed to attend school.
They remortgaged their home in Afghanistan to raise money for passports, visas and initial living costs over the border, where they had to cover school expenses as well as daily living costs. Both parents worked and the days were hard, but they were comforted by the fact that their daughter was studying.
It didn’t last, however. Wherever she went in Iran, Golshan says she heard the same phrase: “Foreigners have no place in this country.” Eventually, Farishta was expelled from her school and the had to return home.
“We went to Iran solely so that Farishta would not fall behind in her studies and lose hope, but what we saw there broke our hearts,” said Ainullah.
Bibi Mah*, a widow, cannot read or write herself, and wants a different life for her three daughters. She doesn’t know that education is enshrined by the United Nations as a human right, but she knows that what she herself has gone through is unfair.
Every morning, with the help of her daughters, she takes around 25 loaves of bread to the market to sell and raise the 1,500 afghanis (circa £18) a month they need to pay for the private educational centre where they learn English. “All the hardship I endure is for them,” she said. “My daughters are very eager to study. It was also the wish of their late father.”
The youngest, 14-year-old Sara*, hopes one day to also go into teaching. Her sister Maryam*, 21, dreams of being an engineer and praises their mother for filling the void left by their late father.
Mothers across Afghanistan are making huge sacrifices to give their daughters the education that was often denied to them. But fathers are also playing their part.
Madina* was in ninth grade when the Taliban closed her school. A year later, her older sister, a second-year computer science undergraduate, suffered the same fate when universities were closed to women. So their father sold his land and sent her sister to Iran to continue her studies. None of it is easy and Madina, who now studies English online from home, said their father has been “like a rock standing behind us”, providing strength.
What all these families have in common is the determination that their girls should continue in education despite the huge challenges that now poses.
Although not every family is able to access secret schools, or uproot their lives, the vast majority of Afghans support girls‘ education. In a nationwide survey of more than 2,000 Afghans commissioned by UN Women, 92 per cent said it was “important” for girls to continue their schooling.
“This is almost always the first thing girls tell us – they are desperate to learn and just want the chance to gain an education,” said UN Women’s Special Representative in Afghanistan, Susan Ferguson, in announcing the results last year.
“Families also say they want their daughters to have that dream. They know that literacy and learning can change the trajectory of a girl’s life, in a country where half the population is living in poverty.”
Many, like Mina and her husband Naser, did not have an education themselves and want something different for their daughters.
“Perhaps there is no easy path at the moment, but there is always a way,” he said. “I will endure any hardship so that I can stand proud before my children knowing I did what I could.”
* Pseudonyms used throughout to protect sources’ identities
