Though it pledged to respect the rights of Afghan women and girls, the Taliban is turning back the clock on their education and presence in public life.
When Zahra Wafa thinks about what it took to put her daughters through school, her face hardens.
A year after the precipitous fall of the U.S.-backed republic and the Islamic militants’ ascension to power, Wafa and her daughters, like so many women and girls across Afghanistan, are grappling with the Taliban’s hard-line vision for the country and its plan to turn back the clock not only on their education but their very presence in public life.
Last month, they allowed female students who were in 12th grade before the republic’s collapse to take the university placement exam known as the Kankor — but blocked off majors they deemed inappropriate for young women to pursue, including economics, engineering, journalism and veterinary medicine. “Before that decision there was optimism. People started feeling late last year that things were going in a safe, good direction. But when they reversed the school opening, it was a game changer,” said Sulaiman Bin Shah, a former official at Afghanistan’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry who still lives in Kabul.
A group of friends, all college students from Ghor province, visit Band-e Amir National Park, a popular tourist attraction near Yakawlang in central Afghanistan in September 2022. At least she wasn’t in limbo like her sister Zainab. A 16-year-old 10th-grader, Zainab hoped to be a doctor, an achievable dream if it were possible to finish her secondary schooling. But with those schools shuttered, Ibrahimi’s class will be the last cohort of Afghan girls and young women to enter university.
To afford it, Wafa wakes up most mornings shortly after daybreak, hikes 30 minutes from Nawa Foladi till she reaches something resembling a road, catches a taxi for the hourlong trip to her handicrafts shop in the city’s central bazaar and works all day before returning home by late evening to prepare food over a stove heated with cow-dung patties and wash clothes in a nearby brook.
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