The people refute the education minister’s comments on girls’ education
Matin Mehrab
The recent comment of the Taliban’s minister of education that people do not want their girls going to school above the sixth grade has provoked a strong reaction from the people of Afghanistan.
“Before you ask me this question, you should ask white-beard men in the mosque and you will see what percentage of the people are willing to send their 16- or 17-year-old daughters to school. We live in Afghan society, and we know the culture of the people,” said Taliban education minister Mawlawi Nurullah Munir. He was responding to a query about girls’ education during a trip to Uruzgan on Sunday.
Protests and criticism were immediate and loud, as men and women throughout Afghanistan reacted with slogans such as “Girls’ schools must be opened.” They believe that the Taliban are using the issue as a bargaining tool against the international community in their effort to seek diplomatic recognition of their regime. In Paktia, fathers and elders were so angry that they issued a warning to the Taliban: open girls’ schools or deal with us.
Osman, a resident of Kandahar province and the father of a teenage girl who was supposed to go to seventh grade last year, is frustrated with the closure of girls’ schools in the past year. “I am waiting every day for girls’ schools above the sixth grade to be opened so that my daughter can go to school again. The Taliban should not ignore people’s demand to allow girls education,” he told Zan Times.
He adds that the Taliban “should give people the right to decide, then see who allows their daughters to go school and who doesn’t.”
Mohammad Yunus Rahimi, a public school principal in Herat province, also refuted the minister’s comments that parents didn’t want their daughters to get an education, saying, “Many parents visit our school every day. They are desperately asking about when their girls can go back to school. People are eagerly waiting for the school to reopen for their daughters.”
“I always get very dismayed by my inability to answer people’s questions about the opening of girls’ schools. In Herat, due to the people’s demand, the education sector officials advocated for the reopening of girls’ schools during many meetings held with the local provincial Taliban leadership,” Rahimi adds. “As a result of these meetings, we realize that the Taliban do not have any convincing reasons for the closure of girls’ education.”
Amir, a resident of Daikundi, is angry and frustrated at Taliban’s ban on girls’ school, saying, “Although we are poor, we have built many schools with donations from the people. Always half of our efforts are for girls’ education. So how can someone say that we do not want our daughters to go to school?”
“The Taliban are hostile to women’s growth and development. They use the issue of girls’ education as a bargaining chip with the international community,” said Rahila Azizi, a women’s rights activist in Kabul.
Since the Taliban came to power in August 2021, Afghanistan is the only country in the world where teenage girls are forbidden to go to school.
So far, the Taliban claim that the ban is temporary and that their leadership is working on a mechanism for reopening the schools. Now, with the Taliban minister of education blaming the closures on the people’s culture, they are significantly altering that explanation.
