Technology helps Afghan women challenge the Taliban

Nahla Abdelmonem

A group of Afghan women started the first step on the road of rebelling against the denigration of their rights by establishing a new center for the teaching of girls.

Called “Code to Inspire”, the new center is established in the western Afghan city of Herat.

The center will train girls in technical skills that help them earn a living by utilizing the internet. The new course will help Afghan girls avoid working for any of their country’s institutions where discrimination is so rampant against women and sexual harassment is very high.

To encourage women to revolt against Afghan traditions, the women establishing the center also launched a new application. Called “Afghan Heroine”, the new application includes a game, featuring a veiled woman fighting a group of devils.

The center and the application are Afghan women’s tools to fight extremism and the low view of women in this society. They do this by utilizing modern technologies.

Suffering

The main founder of the center and the application, Fereshteh Forough, works hard to help Afghan women overcome the suffering Afghan women and families usually sustain because of the presence of the Taliban.

Forough ran away from Afghanistan when the extremist movement reached power in the country in the 1990s. She returned only a year after the movement was removed from power.

She succeeded, however, in travelling to Germany where she obtained a bachelor’s degree in computer science. She then obtained a Master’s Degree from Berlin Institute of Technology.

In January of 2015, Forough founded Herat’s first school that teaches girls computer science. Around 150 girls are enrolled in the school now.

Alternative

Forough referred to discrimination against women all throughout Afghanistan in a recent interview with the Indian magazine, Outlook. She said technical skills would help these girls transform their lives.

She expressed fears against the return of Taliban to power in Afghanistan. When it was in power, the radical movement prevented women from going out of their homes for work.

By learning computer skills, Forough said, women would be able to do their work at home. This will help them avoid any problems they may face outside their homes.