The Taliban ordered female secondary schools in Afghanistan to be closed on Wednesday only hours after they were reopened, an official confirmed, triggered confusion and broken heart to the reversal of the Islamic group.
“Yes, it’s true,” Taliban spokesman Inamullah was sent to AFP when asked to confirm the report that girls had been booked at home.
He will not immediately explain the reason, while Minister of Education Ministry of Education Aziz Ahmad Rayan said: “We are not allowed to comment on this”.
The AFP team was filming at Zarghona High School in the capital, Kabul, when a teacher entered and said the class was over.
Students disappointed, back at school for the first time since the Taliban won power in August last year, with tears blushing their belongings and submitted.
“I saw my students crying and reluctant to leave the class,” said Palwasha, a teacher at the Girls Omra Khan school in Kabul.
“It hurts to see your students cry.”
Messenger United Nations Deborah Lyons said the closing report was “annoying”.
“If it’s true, is it possible for the reason?” He tweeted.
When the Taliban took over August, schools were closed due to Covid-19 pandemic, but only boys and girls were allowed to continue the class two months later.
There are worries of Taliban will close all formal education for girls, as they did during their first task in power from 1996 to 2001.
The international community has done the right to education for all sticky points in negotiations on the aid and recognition of the new Taliban regime, with several countries and organizations that offer to pay for teachers.
On Wednesday, the order for middle school women to continue seems only observed, with reports emerged from several parts of the country – including the spiritual heart of the Kandahar Taliban – that the classes will begin next month.
But some do re-open in the capital and elsewhere, including Herat and Panjshir – at least temporarily.
“All the students we see today are very happy, and they are here with open eyes,” Latifa Hamdard, Principal of Gawharshad High School Begum at Herat, told AFP.
The Ministry of Education said that reopening schools are always the government’s goals and the Taliban do not bend over international pressure.
“We do it as part of our responsibility to provide education and other facilities to our students,” Rayan Ministry spokesman told AFP on Tuesday.
The Taliban insisted they wanted to ensure schools for girls aged 12 to 19 are separated and will operate in accordance with Islamic principles.
The Taliban has imposed many restrictions on women, effectively forbid them from many government work, applying what they wear and prevent them from traveling out of their own city.
They have also detained several women’s rights activists.
Even if the school made it back completely, obstacles for girls who returned to permanent education, with many families suspicious of the Taliban and were reluctant to allow their daughter outside.
Others see a small point in learning for girls at all.
“The girls who had completed their education finally sat at home and their future was uncertain,” said Heelsa Haya, 20, from Kandahar, who has decided to quit school.
“What will be our future?”
It is common for Afghan students to pass the pieces of the school year as a result of poverty or conflict, and some continue the lesson to the end of a teenager or the early twenties.
Human Rights Watch also raised the problem of some Avenue girls was given to apply their education.
“Why are you and your family make a big sacrifice for you to learn whether you will never have a career you dream of?” said Sahar Fetrat, a research assistant with a group.
The Ministry of Education admitted that the authorities faced the lack of teachers – with many of tens of thousands of people who left the country when the Taliban swept power.