A graveyard of buried dreams.
TAKING A TERRIBLE TOLL: the Taliban ban on women's education in Afghanistan.
After 2 years, 50% of the Afghan population still awaits the revokement.
In the early 2020’s a heavy influx of Afghan migrants made their way to Pakistan. A second generation fleeing the brutalities of discord and uncertainties. After Afghanistan’s sovereignty was handed over to the Taliban, the women and girls there waited with a question mark lingering over their future. The memories of past atrocities were still fresh in their minds, but they weren't ready to embark on a journey of exclusion this time.
Immediately after taking over control, of the 80 edicts the Taliban imposed, 54 were directed towards the imprisonment of Afghan women. The restriction of the women’s movement and gender segregation became the center of the society they were envisioning. A society heavily constructed with the patriarchal mindset and adhering to a masculine vision. With the focus on making the Afghan women invisible, the construction of a new Afghanistan turned into a graveyard of buried dreams for Afghani women.
I treated many Afghan patients at the hospital I was working at, over the period of the last year. I saw them struggle with a foreign language. I saw them trying to navigate themselves through an unfamiliar social and cultural construct. Most of my patients were women. They were well-educated and informed. I talked to them. Asking them about their homeland. What made them leave? Almost all those women left because they and their families couldn’t live through another period of banishment.
One of my patients was in her final year of Electrical Engineering, and her sister was in the fourth year of Medicine. Their education was halted abruptly because of the audit passed by the Afghan government. With the unsureness surrounding them, they decided to leave their home behind. For education, they were forced out of their country.
They weren't the first and sadly they won't be the last, to leave behind their entire lives, to pursue their dream of having an education. The Afghani women can never forget that by the end of the first Taliban rule in 2001, less than 1 million children were in school and none of them were girls. Two decades later, those women are ushering their daughter away from such fate.
According to UNESCO, after the suspension of the return to school,1.1 million girls and young women are left without access to formal education. More than a million are deprived of their basic human right. Due to the successful implementation of an abhorrent law, more than 80% of school-going girls were barred from seeking education. After September 2022, Afghanistan became the only country in the world to suspend girl’s and women’s access to education.
Decades of progress on gender equality and visibility that Afghan women worked so hard for were wiped out in months. From reserving 69 seats in parliament to leading negotiations on peace across the country, a new leaf was turning for them finally. Women were visible in Afghanistan, from politics, and journalism to schools.
But as soon as the Taliban came back to power, they banned women from going to parks, gyms, and public bathing houses. Their ability to work outside their homes was prohibited. They were wiped out of the positions they held in government. They were removed from public affairs completely.
The Urban Afghan women have openly opposed the return of Taliba to the legitimate political sphere, especially because they could foresee how significantly it would weaken the rights of Afghan women and hinder their progress. At the same time, many rural women don’t share their sentiments. Those who have spent years in sustained conflict unable to exercise their rights anyway, much prefer peace over rights.
For many people around the world, accessing education is not an act of defiance. For Afghani women, it is. Despite the country grappling with peace, a fragile economy, and power restructuring, the women of Afghanistan shouldn’t be left alone to fight this battle. Their right to education should be upheld at all costs. The fight for their autonomy shouldn’t begin and end at the level of compassion, it should translate into implantable policies.
A strong global stand is required on women’s rights in Afghanistan. Cutting ties with the sitting government won't solve anything, it will rather escalate it making the situation even worse. In the meantime, providing online easily accessible education to Afghan women can compensate for their time lost. Women of Afghanistan’s role is pivotal in overcoming the current situation. Their presence in the rooms where negotiations will take place is a must.
Exodus of women from Afghanistan is not the answer, for many it's not even a possibility. Despite all the odds, women there have refused to give up on their fundamental rights, carving out pockets of hope along the way. They are not accepting a country where they are denied equal rights. And we must do everything in our power to stand with them because it’s not their fight alone.
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