Surprise Taliban U-turn sees schools remain shut for girls beyond year seven

The latest setback for girls’ education, which came in a surprise move on the first day of the country’s new school year, will receive widespread condemnation from the international community, which has been urging the Taliban leaders to open schools and give women their right to public space.

A statement by Afghanistan’s education ministry earlier in the week urged “all students” to come to school.

However, the decision to postpone a return of girls going to school in later years appeared to be a concession to the rural and deeply tribal backbone of the hardline Taliban movement, which in many parts of the countryside is reluctant to send its daughters to school.

Girls have been banned from school beyond year seven in most of the country since the Taliban returned to power last August.

Universities opened up earlier this year in much of the country, but since taking power the Taliban edicts have been erratic and, while a handful of provinces continued to provide education to all, most provinces closed educational institutions for girls and women.

In the capital Kabul, private schools and universities have operated uninterrupted.

The religiously driven Taliban administration fears that going forward with enrolling girls beyond year seven could erode their base, said Waheedullah Hashmi from the Taliban-led administration.

“The leadership hasn’t decided when or how they will allow girls to return to school,” Mr Hashmi said.

While he accepted urban centres are mostly supportive of girls’ education, much of rural Afghanistan is opposed, particularly in tribal Pashtun regions.

In some rural areas, a brother will disown a brother in the city if he finds out he is letting his daughters go to school, said Mr Hashimi, who said the Taliban leadership is trying to decide how to open education for girls beyond year seven countrywide.

Most Taliban are ethnic Pashtuns. In their sweep through the country last year, other ethnics groups such as Uzbeks and Tajiks in the north of the country either joined the fight to give the Taliban their victory or simply chose not to fight.

“We did everything the Taliban asked in terms of Islamic dress and they promised that girls could go to school and now they have broken their promise,” said Mariam Naheebi, a local journalist who spoke to the Associated Press in the Afghan capital.

Ms Naheebi has protested for women’s rights and said: “They have not been honest with us.”