Two female teachers have been reportedly assaulted by Taliban forces in Bamyan province during the visit of the Taliban’s Acting Minister of Education, according to at least three sources who requested anonymity due to security concerns.
The teachers, identified as Zahra Haidari and Sharifa Rostami, are associated with a religious school, Darul Uloom-e-etefaq. A witness said that the violence occurred when the two women joined a group of male teachers and private school students in welcoming Habibullah Agha, the Taliban’s acting Minister of Education.
After the incident, some local Taliban forces suggested that the perpetrators who carried out the beating were mentally unstable.
Habibullah Agha was in Bamyan to inaugurate a Jihad school at Darul-Mu’lamin, also known as the Teacher Training Faculty.
One source said that teachers and students from private schools, including primary school girls, had assembled outside the teacher training faculty to greet the acting minister ahead of his arrival. However, despite waiting for over an hour in cold, rainy weather, they were largely ignored when Agha finally arrived. Agha reportedly passed by the waiting crowd in an armored car without greeting them and alighted at the end of the queue of people.
While the Taliban’s approach to education has been under scrutiny from the international community, there was no mention of girls’ education in Agha’s opening speech. Instead, the focus of the speech reflected the priorities of the Taliban, with Agha announcing that two billion afghanis are allocated annually towards promoting jihadi schools throughout Afghanistan. This cost is despite the increasing poverty rates and unemployment across the country.
Since gaining control over Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned girls education above the sixth grade. The group has made repeated promises to reopen girls schools, but is instead building and reinforcing Jihadi and Deobandi schools throughout the country.
