This week, an Afghan teacher got in touch with a message. She had written a short essay about the suppression of girls’ education in Afghanistan and the hypocrisy of those behind it. She wanted us to share it with you, our readers, “not for pity, but for awareness, outrage, and change”. It is a powerful piece of writing that, as the author said, gives voice to the thousands of Afghan girls learning in secret. We are proud to publish it here.
By Masrora Nabizada
The world should never pity Afghan women — it should pity those who fear them.
Because what kind of strength hides behind locked school gates?
What kind of faith trembles at the sight of a girl holding a book?
What kind of honor depends on keeping a woman uneducated?
What kind of man feels threatened by knowledge, by light, by truth?
This isn’t strength — it’s sickness.
It’s the cowardice of those who build walls around women because they’re too weak to face an equal.
They say they are protecting our “honor,” our “values,” but let’s be honest — they are protecting their fear.
They’re terrified of a woman who can think. Because once a woman begins to think, she begins to question.
And once she begins to question, their control starts to crumble.
They say they are protecting our “values.”
They say, “A woman’s place is sacred, inside the home.”
They tell the world, “We are giving women their rights — the Islamic way.”
But their words are masks.
Their rules are cages dressed up as protection.
They use religion as a curtain to hide their fear —
fear of women who can think, question, and lead.
If they truly believed in education,
why are classrooms turned into storage rooms?
Why are teachers forced to beg for permission to teach?
Why is a ten-year-old girl told she’s too old to go to school
but old enough to marry a man three times her age?
They say, “We are guarding women’s dignity.”
But what dignity is there in taking away a girl’s dreams?
What respect is there in silencing her voice?
They claim to protect us, but they protect only their power.
They call it “tradition,” but it’s control.
They call it “faith,” but it’s fear.
And yet — we are still here.
We still study in secret.
We still teach our sisters when the doors are closed.
We learn from old phones, from hidden books, from the internet that flickers like hope.
Mothers whisper lessons to daughters while cooking dinner.
Even when they steal our schools, we build new ones inside our minds.
They cover our voices — yet we find ways to be heard.
Through words written in notebooks, through online classes, through hidden poems, through every mother who teaches her child what courage means.
Even in silence, we are still speaking.
You can lock a classroom, but you can’t cage a mind. You can take away books, but not thought. You can silence a girl, but not the fire that lives inside her.
So pity them — the ones who are so afraid of our intelligence that they must destroy books to feel powerful.
Pity the men whose pride is so fragile that a girl’s education threatens it.
Pity those who live in darkness and call it safety, who mistake fear for faith and control for respect.
Yes, pity them! — the ones who destroy knowledge because they can’t create it.
Pity those who build their pride on our silence.
Pity those who fear women so much that they confuse obedience with peace.
And to the people who scroll and sigh and say “how sad” — stop.
We don’t want your pity. We want your outrage to translate into action.
If you have influence, use it. If you have platforms, amplify our voices, not your guilt.
If you see policies that steal education, name them. If you see donors who fund institutions that shut girls out — call them out.
Don’t hand us charity and call it justice.
This is not a prayer for mercy.
This is an accusation: you are stealing futures and calling it protection.
You are teaching daughters that their value is in being invisible.
And every time you destroy a syllabus, you steal a generation’s chance to heal a country.
We are not broken.
We are not passive.
We are the ones who memorize poems in the dark, who teach our siblings, who smuggle knowledge like contraband, who plant books under mattresses like seeds.
We are the quiet rebellion — the lives that learn anyway.
So yes — pity them.
Pity the ones who fear a girl with a pen.
Pity the ones whose ideas are so small they must crush something bigger to feel powerful.
But do not pity us.
We will not forgive ignorance as an excuse.
We will not accept “values” that are just a robe for cruelty.
We will return — not with vengeance, but with classrooms full of girls who can read, think, vote, teach, heal, and lead.
And when we come back, history will not be kind to those who hid behind “tradition.”
It will remember the teachers they fired, the books they burned, and the girls who learned in the dark and refused to stay there.
But don’t pity us.
We are not broken; we are becoming unbreakable.
We are not quiet; we are gathering our voices.
We are not lost; we are preparing to rise.
We are the girls who will return, not with revenge, but with education.
Not with hate, but with truth.
Because one day, history will remember who tried to chain us,
and who kept learning anyway.
And when that day comes,
the world will finally see that the real shame never belonged to the Afghan girl —
it belonged to those who were terrified of her light.
Because the truth is, they should pity themselves.
A mind afraid of women’s strength is already defeated.
And one day, when Afghan girls rise again —
they will realize that all along, it was never us who were powerless.
It was them.
So again pity them — the ones who fear our education, our strength, our freedom — because their fear is proof of our power.
