KABUL — The
Taliban ordered girls’ secondary schools in Afghanistan to shut on Wednesday
just hours after they reopened, sparking heartbreak and confusion over the
policy reversal by the hardline Islamist group.
اضافة اعلان
The reversal was announced after thousands of
girls resumed lessons for the first time since August, when the Taliban seized
control of the country and imposed harsh restrictions on women.
The education ministry offered no coherent
explanation even as officials held a ceremony in the capital to mark the start
of the academic year, saying it was a matter for the country’s leadership.
“In Afghanistan, especially in the villages,
the mindsets are not ready,” spokesman Aziz Ahmad Rayan told reporters.
“We have some cultural restrictions ... but
the main spokesmen of the Islamic Emirate will offer better clarifications.”
A Taliban source told AFP the decision came
after a meeting late Tuesday by senior officials in the southern city of
Kandahar, the movement’s de facto power center and conservative spiritual
heartland.
Wednesday’s date for girls to resume school
had been announced weeks earlier by the ministry, with spokesman Rayan saying
the Taliban had a “responsibility to provide education and other facilities to
our students”.
They insisted that pupils aged 12 to 19 would
be segregated — even though most Afghan schools are already same-sex — and
operate according to Islamic principles.
Crestfallen girls at Zarghona High School in
the capital, Kabul, tearfully packed up their belongings after teachers halted
the lesson.
“I see my students crying and reluctant to
leave classes,” said Palwasha, a teacher at Omara Khan girls’ school in Kabul.
“It is very painful to see them crying.”
US special envoy to Afghanistan Rina Amiri
tweeted the move “weakens confidence in the Taliban commitments” and “further
dashes the hopes of families for a better future for their daughters”.
Nobel Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai, who
survived a Pakistani Taliban assassination attempt when she was 15-years-old
and has long campaigned for girls’ education, also expressed dismay.
“They will keep finding excuses to stop girls
from learning — because they are afraid of educated girls and empowered women,”
she said on Twitter.
‘Ideological
differences’
Afghan
expert Andrew Watkins, of the US Institute of Peace, said the about-face
reflected a rift in the Taliban leadership.
“This last-minute change appears to be driven
by ideological differences in the movement ... about how girls returning to
school will be perceived by their followers,” he told AFP.
There were fears that, after seizing control,
the Taliban would shut down all formal education for girls — as they did during
their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.
At the time of the takeover, schools were
closed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Boys and younger girls were allowed to
resume classes two months later, raising hopes they had softened their stance.
The international community has made the
right to education for all a sticking point in negotiations over aid and
recognition of the new Taliban regime, with several nations and organizations
offering to pay teachers.
Students from Sadar Kabuli Girls High School
staged protests after they were told to leave, witnesses and activists said.
“They left after the Taliban came and told
them to go home. It was a peaceful protest,” a shopkeeper in the area said.
Slew
of restrictions
The
Taliban have imposed a slew of restrictions on women, effectively banning them
from many government jobs, policing what they wear and preventing them from
traveling outside of their cities alone.
They have also detained several women’s
rights activists.
Even if schools do reopen fully, barriers to
girls returning to education remain, with many families suspicious of the
Taliban and reluctant to allow their daughters outside.
Others see little point in girls learning at
all.
Women have been barred from returning to most
government jobs since the Taliban’s return and there is little productive
private-sector employment in a country with a crippled economy.
“Those girls who have finished their
education have ended up sitting at home and their future is uncertain,” said
Heela Haya, 20, from Kandahar, who decided to quit school.
“What will be our future?”
In Geneva, the UN rights chief said
Wednesday’s development would be “deeply damaging” for Afghanistan.
“I share the profound frustration and disappointment of
Afghan high school girls and women,” Michelle Bachelet said in a statement.
Read more Region and World
.jpg)
.jpg)
