Ten days after the reopening of the country’s private universities, the Ministry of Education announced on Friday that “all male teachers and secondary school students” would return to their establishments, without making any mention of teachers or college girls.
Between 1996 and 2001, the Islamist movement carried out a particularly brutal policy towards women. They were not allowed to work, play sports, or go out alone in the street. After the departure of the Taliban, women were gradually able to recover their basic rights. They were able to gain access to trades that had been banned until then, such as judges, parliamentarians, or even pilots.
Immediate reaction from the international community
“Unicef welcomes the reopening of secondary schools in Afghanistan, but stresses that girls should not be left out,” reacted Friday the executive director of the UN agency, Henrietta Fore. “It is essential that all, including the oldest, can resume their education without further delay, and that teachers can also continue to teach”, insisted Unicef in a statement, recalling the “considerable progress in the countries over the past two decades ”. In the space of twenty years, the number of schools has tripled and the number of children attending school has increased from 1 million to 9.5 million, according to the UN agency.
A GRADUAL EXCLUSION OF WOMEN
Since their return to power, the Taliban have tried to reassure the international community by ensuring, among other things, that women’s rights would be respected. Only in fact, the situation looks different. Women certainly retain the right to study at university but must wear an abaya and a hijab. Lessons will be given as far as possible in a single-sex group.
They must study out of sight of men: in a class just for them if they are more than fifteen, in a class where they are separated from men if they are less than fifteen. No woman is also included in the new provisional executive presented in early September.
As for the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, feared for its fundamentalism during the first Taliban episode, it now seems to occupy the premises of the former Ministry of Women’s Affairs.
Afghanistan will be at the center of multiple discussions at the UN General Assembly next week. The question of who will speak for Kabul is not yet settled.