Secret schools for girls in Afghanistan to overcome Taliban’s decisions

Mohamed Yosry

The Taliban considers women’s education and work as issues that it rejects categorically, regardless of the reasons or the consequences that may be reflected in the interests of the movement and its relations with the world. It absolutely rejects the participation or appearance of women, which has exposed it to many problems with the international and relief organizations operating on its lands that allow women to work within their teams deployed in the country. In response, some Afghans have resorted to establishing secret schools to educate girls due to the movement’s strict approach against women.

Provocative statements

Since the Taliban rose to power, it has dealt with the file of girls’ education in a way that does not exist in any other country in the world. Although the movement officially showed flexibility with this file at the beginning of its accession to power, it seems that it was a kind of appeasement until it found the appropriate opportunity to deal with the file in accordance with its own directives.

The leaders of the movement showed their firm position on this issue, to the extent that Taliban Higher Education Minister Mullah Neda Mohammad Nadeem in December 2022 declared that he refuses to enroll girls in university education, saying, “If they drop an atomic bomb on us, we will not back down. We are ready for sanctions imposed on us by the international community.”

Women are therefore completely deprived of enrollment in university education, which prompted a group of women to self-educate themselves and set up a secret library in the Afghan capital, Kabul, at their own expense, with the aim of promoting women’s culture and educating them in the Pul-e-Surkh area, but the movement did not leave them alone and pressured them, which eventually led to the closure of the library in mid-March.

Secret schools

Similar to the secret women’s library in Kabul, other secret schools for girls have appeared in Afghanistan. Local reports stated that secret girls’ schools have increased significantly in Afghanistan recently to overcome the movement’s decisions against girls’ education, according to the Wall Street Jounral.

Reports indicated that some Taliban members send their daughters to these schools to continue their education, which reflects their awareness of the importance of educating girls, but it is stubbornness and perseverance that drives the movement to continue its approach of rejecting girls’ education.

These schools are spread inside homes and in secret underground facilities in Kabul and in some other major cities. They were established specifically to overcome this crisis, which seems will continue for a long time.

On Tuesday, March 22, the Taliban allowed reopening secondary schools for girls for the first time since it came to power, but it retracted the decision hours later and issued another decision the next day to close these schools again.

Escape abroad

Many girls resort to fleeing outside Afghanistan to complete their education, although the matter is not limited to female students alone but has also reached university professors escaping, especially women professors, due to the restrictions imposed by the movement on everyone since it came to power. According to local reports, more than 1,200 university professors, mostly from the universities of Kabul, Nangarhar, Herat, Kandahar, and Mazar-i-Sharif, left Afghanistan because of the Taliban’s position on girls’ education and preventing them from completing their university education.