Taliban's U-turn shutting schools on teenage girls shocks many
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Kabul: In Afghanistan, after allowing girls to continue education, the Taliban rolled back the policy hours after it was implemented. On Wednesday, saddened girls left classes midway, and now they express their grief and disappointment to the news agency Agence France-Presse.
Thirteen-year-old Adeeba Haidari feels that she is in prison. She, a student of Al Fatah Girls School in Kabul, said that everyone was convinced that the Taliban had changed. Her 11-year-old sister said that when they were sent home from classes, they understood that the Taliban was still the Taliban 25 years ago. Girls are treated like criminals just because of being girls, and Afghanistan has become a jail for them, she added. AFP heard from a source of the Shitte Hazara community that the Taliban feels threatened by educated women. Taliban thinks that if the women are educated they will take arms against them.
AFP reports that there no concrete reasons have been given for the sudden rollback of permission for teenage girl students. AFP reports that leaked information from a confidential meeting of leaders suggested a range of problems in reopening schools, including issues with uniforms and outright rejection of the teenage girls being schooled.
However, Al Jazeera reported that the education ministry of the Taliban cited a shortage of teachers after many fled the country during Kabul's fall. Taliban said they would appoint temporary teachers shortly. The administration said the schools would be opened after formulating guidelines to run them in line with Sharia and Afghan culture.
When the Taliban took Kabul in August last year, it had promised the girls' education and ensured human rights, aligning with Shariah Law. They had said that girls could study through University. However, they had shut down schools for teenage girls, banned women from government jobs, imposed restrictions on what women wear and prevented them from travelling alone outside home cities. Also, it detained women's rights activists.