In Afghanistan, the Taliban has banned girls' education, leaving thousands of classrooms empty.
KABUL: Before the Taliban banned secondary education for girls, some of Salma's friends attended her school in Kabul with their sisters, but after the ban came into effect nearly three years ago, they stopped going altogether.
“They don’t want to come alone. It’s sad to lose a friend,” Salma, now in fifth grade, told Arab News.
She also said that she used to visit the classroom for older girls on the second floor with her friends, which she no longer does because it has been empty since the ban, which has made the 12-year-old think about what the future holds.
“It’s even more heartbreaking to think that we won’t be able to go to school after two years, that we’ll graduate after sixth grade and that there will be no future for us after that,” she said.
Since September 2021, a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, girls have been banned from attending secondary schools, denying access to formal education to an estimated 1.1 million girls and leaving thousands of classrooms and buildings empty.
“The girls’ school is open only up to grade 6. The remaining classrooms, from grade 7 to grade 12 … are not in use. The rest of the building is not usable,” an official from the Afghan Ministry of Education told Arab News.
According to the Ministry of Education, Afghanistan officially recognized around 20,000 schools as of August 2022, only about half of which had functioning buildings and around 5,000 were damaged after the war. Meanwhile, according to official estimates, there were around 4,000 secondary schools and secondary schools for girls in the country before the ban on education.
When classrooms and buildings that used to house older girls are empty, they can be used to house girls in lower grades, said Najla Ahmadzai, a teacher at a government school in Kabul.
“Previously, we did not have enough space to accommodate more girls. We had a very low enrollment rate. But now that we have more space, we can accommodate more girls, especially in grades 1 to 3,” she told Arab News, adding that unused space could bring about “positive changes.”
But still, the empty classroom, which used to be a classroom for girls in the upper grades, “made me heartbroken,” she said.
“It’s painful and unbelievable for me as a teacher and as a mother. I think about my own daughters but also about the daughters of the country. They have the right to an education and deserve to be part of society.”
Abandoned buildings are a painful reminder of what 16-year-old Bibi Laila, one of those not allowed to go to school, did.
“Instead of using the buildings to educate girls, especially older girls, they have become empty and scary spaces because no one has gone there for the past three years,” Laila said.
“We have schools, buildings, teachers, books and everything. We can go to school tomorrow, but the (Taliban) policies are preventing me and thousands of other girls from getting an education and achieving our dreams and hopes.”
Domestic appeals or international pressure on the Taliban government have failed to lift the ban, which authorities have repeatedly said is an “internal matter.” The ban has also been extended to universities, preventing more than 100,000 female students from graduating.
“If we don’t go back to school, we will become illiterate,” Laila said. “We are very sad but there’s nothing we can do. I think people in the country and the world are forgetting us.”
