KABUL: Days after the Taliban offered a cruel Volte-face on allowing Afghan girls back to academy, Adeeba Haidari feels as if she’s in captivity.
The 13- time-old was one of thousands of triumphant girls who crowded back to secondary seminaries continuing across the country on Wednesday, for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August.
But just hours into classes, the education ministry blazoned a shock policy reversal that left pixies feeling betrayed and the transnational community outraged.
“ Not only me but everyone you asked believed that the Taliban had changed,” said Adeeba, who compactly returned to Al Fatah Girls School in the capital, Kabul.
“ When they transferred everyone back home from academy, we understood that the Taliban were the same Taliban of 25 times agone,” her 11- time-old family Malahat added.
“ We’re being treated like culprits just because we’re girls. Afghanistan has turned into a jail for us.”
When the Taliban returned to power, they promised a softer rule compared with their first governance from 1996 to 2001, which came notorious for mortal rights abuses.
They claimed to admire women’s rights, in line with their interpretation of Islamic sharia law, and said girls would be allowed to study through to university.
But the Taliban have assessed a slew of restrictions on women, effectively banning them from numerous government jobs, policing what they wear and precluding them from travelling outside of their metropolises alone.
They’ve also detained several women’s rights activists.
“ We miss our freedom. We miss our classmates and preceptors,” said Adeeba.
‘ Dreams shattered’
There has been no clear explanation for the last- nanosecond reversal on secondary seminaries, but reports blurted from a uncommunicative leadership meeting this week suggested motives ranging from problems with uniforms to an outright rejection of the need for education for teenage girls.
The education ministry still insists seminaries will renew, but only when new guidelines are issued.
Across city, Nargis Jafri, from the nonage Shia Hazara community, said the Taliban feel hovered by educated women. “ They believe that if we study, we will gain knowledge and we will fight against them,” the 14- time-old told AFP, sitting with her books spread out on her study table at home.
It’s agonising for her to watch boys her age walking past her house on their way to academy each morning. “ It’s really hard and painful for me,” she said.
Like numerous families, history is repeating itself from one generation to the coming.
Nargis’s mama, Hamida, was forced to leave academy during the Taliban’s first rule when she was about 10 times old.
The stories from what she allowed a distant history are submerging into her mind again.
“ I used to feel strange when she told us how she wore a burqa or a chador, or how a woman wasn’t allowed to go out without a manly relative,” Nargis said.
Hamida now struggles to accept a analogous fate for her son.
“ My son will be held back from going to academy,” she said. “ The dreams she has in her heart will be shattered.”
