‘Why Can’t We Study?’ - Afghan Girls Still Barred From School

All primary students can return to school in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have barred secondary schoolgirls from lessons until security and segregation requirements are met - AFP
All primary students can return to school in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have barred secondary schoolgirls from lessons until security and segregation requirements are met - AFP
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‘Why Can’t We Study?’ - Afghan Girls Still Barred From School

All primary students can return to school in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have barred secondary schoolgirls from lessons until security and segregation requirements are met - AFP
All primary students can return to school in Afghanistan, but the Taliban have barred secondary schoolgirls from lessons until security and segregation requirements are met - AFP

Afghan teenager Amena saw dozens of classmates killed when her girls' school was targeted by an ISIS bomb attack in May, but she was determined to continue her education.

Now, like most secondary school girls in the country, she is banned from lessons altogether after the Taliban's hardline government excluded them from returning to class one month ago.

"I wanted to study, see my friends and have a bright future, but now I am not allowed," 16-year-old Amena told AFP at her home in western Kabul.

"This situation makes me feel awful. Since the Taliban arrived, I am very sad and angry."

On September 18, Taliban ordered male teachers and boys aged 13 and over back to secondary schools, picking up an academic year already cut short by violence and the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, there was no mention of women teachers or girl pupils.

The Taliban later said older girls can return to secondary schools, which were already mostly split by gender, but only once security and stricter segregation under their interpretation of Islamic law could be ensured.

Reports have emerged of girls going back to a few high schools -- such as in Kunduz province where the Taliban promoted the return with a stage-managed rally.

The de facto Taliban education minister told the UN children's body that a framework to allow all girls to go to secondary school will be announced soon, a senior UNICEF executive said Friday.

But for now, the vast majority are barred from lessons across the country of about 39 million people, including in the capital Kabul.

Primary schools, meanwhile, have reopened for all children and women can go to private universities, though with tough restrictions on their clothes and movement.

Amena lives just a short walk from her Sayed Al-Shuhada High School, where 85 people -- mainly young girls -- perished in the May bomb attack.

"Innocent girls were killed," Amena said, her eyes welling up.

"I saw with my own eyes the dying and wounded girls.

"However, I still wanted to go to school again."

Amena would be in Grade 10 studying her favorite subjects such as biology, but instead is stuck inside with a handful of books doing "nothing special".

The teenager said she dreamt of becoming a journalist, but now has "no hope in Afghanistan".

Her siblings help her at home, and occasionally she gets lessons from a psychologist who comes to see her younger sister, still traumatized by the school attack.

"They say: 'Study if you cannot go to school -- study at home so that you may become someone in the future.'"

"My brother brings home storybooks and I read them," Amena said. "And I always watch the news."

But she does not understand why boys are allowed to study and girls are not.

"Half of the society is made up of girls and the other half is made up of boys. There is no difference between them," she said.

"Why can't we study? Are we not part of society? Why should only boys have a future?"

- Recent progress -

After US-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, progress was made in girls' education.

The number of schools tripled and female literacy nearly doubled to 30 percent, but the change was largely limited to the cities.

"Afghan women have made great achievements in the past 20 years," said Nasrin Hasani, a 21-year-old teacher at a Kabul secondary school who now helps out with primary pupils.

But the current situation has "lowered both our and the students' morale", she said, questioning the Taliban's reasoning.

"As far as we all know, the religion of Islam has never hindered the education and work of women."

Hasani said she has not experienced any direct threats from the Taliban.

But Amnesty International reported that one high school teacher received death threats and was summoned for prosecution because she used to teach co-educational sport.

Hasani said she was clinging to hope that the Taliban will be "a little different" from their brutal 1996-2001 regime, when women were not even allowed out of their homes unchaperoned.

Born years after 2001, Zainab has no memories of that period and loved going to school until the Taliban directive.

The 12-year-old was stuck looking out of the window with a "terrible feeling" last month when boys went back to school.

"It is quite obvious that things get worse day by day", said Zainab, whose name has been changed to protect her identity.

Her 16-year-old sister Malalay said tearfully that she had "feelings of despair and fear".

Malalay, whose name has also been changed, passes her time helping around the house, cleaning, washing dishes and doing laundry.

She said she tries not to cry in front of her mother "because there are a lot of pressures on her".

The teen had dreams of promoting women's rights and speaking out against the men depriving her of her rights.

"My rights are to go to school and university," she said.

"All my dreams and plans are now buried."



Frontex: Irregular Migrant Crossings Into EU Drop 20% in 2025

11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
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Frontex: Irregular Migrant Crossings Into EU Drop 20% in 2025

11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa
11 June 2025, United Kingdom, Dover: A group of people, believed to be migrants, are brought into Dover by a Border Force vessel following a small boat incident in the Channel. Photo: Gareth Fuller/PA Wire/dpa

The number of irregular migrant crossings into the European Union dropped by 20 percent in the first five months of the year, the EU's border agency said Wednesday.

Warsaw-based Frontex said that a total of 63,700 crossings were detected this year, adding that the main nationalities were Afghan, Bangladeshi and Malian.

The biggest decreases in irregular crossings were seen in the Western Balkans (minus 56 percent), the western African route (minus 35 percent) and the eastern Mediterranean (minus 30 percent).

There was also a seven percent decrease in migrant crossings from Belarus into Poland and the Baltics to 5,062 crossings, Frontex said.

But it pointed to a slight increase of seven percent in the number of migrants crossing the central Mediterranean towards Italy.

Frontex also said that the number of migrants attempting to cross into Britain via the Channel increased by 17 percent to 25,540 compared to the first five months of 2024.

"Smuggling networks operating in the area are adapting, using simultaneous departures to increase the number of successful crossings," AFP quoted it as saying.

Irregular migration has become a political flashpoint across Europe, as seen most recently in the Polish presidential election on June 1 which was won by a nationalist promising to crack down on immigration.

Irregular border crossings detected into the European Union were down 38 percent to 239,000 last year after an almost 10-year peak in 2023, according to EU border agency Frontex.

But, led by hawks including Italy and Denmark, EU leaders called in October for urgent new legislation to increase and speed up returns and for the commission to assess "innovative" ways to counter irregular migration.