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BBC Reports Taliban Still Denying Education to Afghan Girls

The BBC reported Tuesday that the extremist fundamentalist Taliban continues to ban girls from receiving formal education and to forbid female teachers from working.

Since seizing control of Kabul in 1996, the Taliban has imposed a strict system of gender apartheid against all women living in areas controlled by the Taliban. The Taliban’s edicts, which have been brutally enforced, banish most women from the work force, closed schools to girls in the cities and expelled women from universities.

The BBC also reported that some are defying the Taliban’s rules and seeking alternative forms of education for girls such as home-based schools. But home-based schools provide only rudimentary level of education to a small number of young girls. Afghan families who flee to refugee camps in Pakistan can send their daughters to camp schools, although educational opportunities for Afghan girls in Pakistan are extremely limited.

The Taliban claims that they will rebuild and open schools for girls and women once peace is restored. One Afghan father of five school-age daughters responded to the claim by asking “how long are we waiting for that? Because you know the children will grow up and, naturally, the time never comes again for them, the time is golden. We are missing that.”

Sources:

BBC News and Feminist Majority Foundation - January 11, 2000

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