Ban of female education lifted?!

How were women treated by the Taliban?

While in power in Afghanistan, the Taliban became dishonorable internationally for their treatment of women.

From the age of eight, women were not allowed to be in direct contact with men, other than a close blood relative, husband, or in-law.
 Other restrictions were:

• Women should not appear in the streets without a blood relative and without wearing a Burkha.
• Women should not wear high-heeled shoes as no man should hear a woman’s footsteps, to avoid ‘exciting’ men.
• Women must not speak loudly in public as no stranger should hear a woman's voice.
• All ground and first floor residential windows should be painted over or screened to prevent women being visible from the street.
• The photographing or filming of women was banned as was displaying pictures of females in newspapers, books, shops or the home.
• The modification of any place names that included the word "women." For example, "women's garden" was renamed "springtime garden^.
• Women were forbidden to appear on the balconies of their apartments or houses.
• Ban on women's presence on radio, television or at public gatherings of any kind.

The Taliban claimed to recognise their Islamic duty to offer education to both boys and girls, yet a decree was passed that banned girls above the age of 8 from receiving instruction.
This was only meant to be temporary and females would return to school and work once facilities and street security were adapted to prevent cross-gender contact.


The Guardian today has covered the ‘female education ban’ in more depth.

“Afghanistan minister claims leadership has undergone 'cultural change' and no longer opposes female education.”

The Taliban's leadership is prepared to drop its ban on girls' schools, one of Afghanistan's most influential cabinet ministers has claimed.


According to Farooq Wardak, the country's education minister, the movement has decided to scrap the ban on female education that helped earn the movement worldwide infamy in the 1990s.
Wardak said the Taliban's leadership had undergone a profound change since losing power after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.


"It is attitudinal change, it is behavioural change, it is cultural change," he told the Times Educational Supplement.


"What I am hearing at the very upper policy level of the Taliban is that they are no more opposing education and also girls' education."

Female MPs greeted with disbelief the Taliban's supposed softening of stance on schooling for girls.
Marman Gulhar, MP for the north-eastern province of Kunar, was also sceptical. "This is not true and it will never happen," she told the BBC. "The Taliban will never be ready for that [girls' education].
"In fact they are fighting against that. The girls' schools are closed and still are closed."

Government and private schools across Swat are unlikely to reopen when the winter vacations end after a Taliban deadline expired on Thursday – with around 80,000 female students facing a year without classes.

Last month, the Taliban threatened to kill any girl attending classes after January 15, and to blow up any schools where girls are enrolled.
The expiry of the deadline – which did not apply to girls below grade five – has been followed by the closure of around 400 schools in Swat, leaving the education of around 80,000 female students and the careers of about 8,000 female teachers in jeopardy.
Residents are complaining that the government has not responded to the situation. They say the closure of schools has left some parents with no option but to migrate, but the majority cannot afford such a move.

District education officials also said the government had not yet come up with a solution.
The district administration had asked private schools to continue classes, but the request has been turned down. A spokesman for an association of private schools told AFP the resumption of classes was in doubt. “The government has assured us it will provide security, but it is a question of the lives of the students … we cannot take a risk.” The Swat Taliban have already destroyed 122 girls’ schools.