In July, the Taliban introduced a gathering of handpicked clerics to determine on the destiny of the schooling ban. However solely two clerics got here in help of the women’ schooling. Since then, the Taliban has not made any progress on whether or not they’re keen to compromise

“Initially, we had been hopeful that they’d reopen colleges, however with the passage of time, we observed that, no, they’re doing one thing else. They simply problem anti-women verdicts after every day,” Nazhand stated. “I do not suppose that they’re keen to reopen colleges, the Taliban have no drawback with ladies’ colleges, however they wish to exploit them politically. They wish to proceed their ruling on society by banning ladies colleges. It’s of their curiosity to impose restrictions on girls as a result of they can not do it on males.”

After the US military intervention of Afghanistan in late 2001 that ousted the Taliban from energy, the war-torn nation witnessed a sequence of socioeconomic reforms and rebuilding packages. The post-Taliban constitution, which was ratified in 2004, expanded girls’s rights to go to highschool, vote, work, serve in civic establishments, and protest. By 2009, girls had been working for president for the primary time within the nation’s historical past.

However the 4 a long time of struggle and hostility inflicted huge hurt to Afghanistan’s fundamental infrastructures, together with to the nation’s instructional belongings.

And even earlier than the Taliban seized energy on Aug. 15 final yr, a report by UNICEF discovered that Afghanistan had struggled with greater than 4.2 million kids out of faculty, 60% of whom had been ladies. Though the potential prices of not educating girls and boys alike are excessive by way of misplaced earnings, not educating ladies is very expensive due to the connection between instructional attainment and pupil delaying marriage and childbearing, taking part within the workforce, making decisions about their very own future, and investing extra within the well being and schooling of their very own kids later in life. The evaluation signifies that Afghanistan will probably be unable to regain the GDP misplaced in the course of the transition and attain its true potential productiveness with out fulfilling ladies’ rights to entry and full secondary college schooling. UNICEF additionally estimated that If the present cohort of three million ladies had been capable of full their secondary schooling and take part within the job market, it will contribute a minimum of $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s financial system.

A report by Amnesty International additionally says that the Taliban have prevented girls throughout Afghanistan from working.

“Most girls authorities staff have been informed to remain residence, excluding these working in sure sectors equivalent to well being and schooling,” the report states. “Within the personal sector, many ladies have been dismissed from high-level positions. The Taliban’s coverage seems to be that they’ll permit solely girls who can’t be changed by males to maintain working. Ladies who’ve continued working informed Amnesty Worldwide that they’re discovering it extraordinarily troublesome within the face of Taliban restrictions on their clothes and conduct, such because the requirement for ladies docs to keep away from treating male sufferers or interacting with male colleagues.”

“Twenty years in the past, when the Taliban took management of Afghanistan, the very first thing they did was a ban on girls’s entry to schooling,” Nazhand stated. “The Taliban stored numerous girls in isolation and as an illiterate inhabitants; the end result was a paralyzed and backward society. We should not neglect that the Taliban are nonetheless affected by the novel and repressive mindset that they’d maintain 20 years in the past. We should not stay the ladies that we had been 20 years in the past, and we is not going to stay silent.”

Safety threats and acts of terrorism have additionally been a significant concern to the scholars in Afghanistan. In late October, a suicide bomber attacked a category filled with over 500 college students in west Kabul, killing a minimum of 54 college graduates — amongst them had been 54 young girls. The assault marked the second lethal assault on schooling facilities within the nation for the reason that Taliban had taken over energy.