Last week, the Ministry of Education announced that secondary schools across the country would be opened to girls. Since the takeover by the conservative-Islamic Taliban in August last year, they were no longer allowed to go to school in 28 of the 34 Afghan provinces. On Tuesday, the Ministry of Education distributed an information video with congratulations to the girls of Afghanistan.
Girls happily attended secondary schools in the capital Kabul on Wednesday morning, according to Reuters news agency, only to be told they had to go home. Many were in tears. “We were all disappointed and feeling hopeless when the director told us. She also had to cry herself,” said one student.
Critics took to social media that the Taliban had broken their promise. Scientist and women’s activist Orzala Nemat said on Twitter: ‘Death is not just a matter of the body. You kill the minds of half the population if you deny girls an education. It is an inhumane, un-Islamic act.’
fight
The school ban is until further notice, according to the Ministry of Education. The government first wants to draw up a plan to introduce girls’ education that is consistent with Islamic law and Afghan culture, the official Bakhtar News news agency said. For example, a special school uniform must first be designed that meets Islamic standards. By the way, a hijab was already mandatory.
The surprising decision could become an obstacle to the Taliban regime’s efforts to gain international recognition, especially from Western donors. And this at a time when penniless Afghanistan is in a deep economic and humanitarian crisis. According to the United Nations World Food Programme, 23 out of 38 million Afghans are in need of food aid.
According to analysts, the ban on education points to a conflict within the Taliban leadership between a more pragmatic urban group that values good relations with the West – and the billions in aid money it unlocks – and the leaders of the conservative tribal following in the countryside, with especially the Pathans, who traditionally do not send their daughters to school.
Reshuffle
Since the Taliban ousted President Ashraf Ghani’s government last August and all Western troops left the country, the pragmatic ‘Taliban 2.0’ seemed to prevail. Unlike during the first Taliban regime (1996-2001), women are allowed to work and study to a certain extent, television is allowed and the burqa is no longer compulsory (but still the hijab). The fact that the provisional school ban for girls has not yet been lifted, however, seems to be a concession to the conservative wing, traditionally the backbone of the movement.
The timing of the decision may be related to a conclave of Taliban leaders with Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhunzada at his home base of Kandahar. According to sources in Kabul, a reshuffle of the government, with a number of ministers to be replaced. “However, we are not saying that this ban is forever,” Taliban foreign and donor relations spokesman Wahidullah Hashmi told Associated Press.
It is nevertheless a setback for the international community, which in recent months has been insisting on the importance of education for women and girls. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres spoke on Wednesday of a “deep disappointment, which is very harmful to Afghanistan”. Last week, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to establish formal ties with the internationally isolated Taliban.