The results of the (solar year) university entrance or (Kankor) exam in Afghanistan were announced, but the Taliban once again prevented girls from participating in this exam. If we measure the issue with human rights standards, this is one of the most catastrophic events in the world.
It is unfortunate to see that the girls have been deprived of their basic rights for the past nearly three years, and many label this as a discriminatory policy that Taliban needs to stop it.
Depriving half of the population of their most basic rights can only happen in the territory of Afghanistan at the current time. There is no country across the world where girls are banned from education, even not in Islamic countries.
Unfortunately, a part of the society agrees with this approach of the Taliban to a large extent and gives reason for it from religious texts and cultural and traditional values. But this is not true, in Islam pursuing education is obligatory for men and women. Also from cultural perspectives, there is no single place or village where the families are not happy to see their girls going to schools. If we go back to history and put a glance before the outbreak of war four decades ago, the girls were going to schools in every province across the country.
At the same time, the Taliban have taken away the power of protest from the citizens. At the outset when the Taliban banned schools, a large number of people took to the streets, but ended in an appropriate way. The Taliban had detained protesting girls and women and warned others to stay away.
Depriving girls above sixth grade of education has disastrous long-term consequences. Those families who are economically stable choose the path of migration to foreign countries so that their children can continue their studies in a suitable environment. Such people constitute a small part of the society. Millions of families are not able to go abroad. They stay inside the country seeing their sons deprived of education. A very hard reality.
The diminution of the presence of the middle class in a society paves the way for the Taliban to engineer the country at their will and not face a serious challenge.
From the point of view of sociology, the dynamism of any society depends on the presence of the urban middle class in that society. Perhaps this is the reason why the Taliban are incompatible with the middle class and try to change their lifestyle the way they want.
Lack of access to education puts girls in a unprecedented dilemma
Some of the deprived schoolgirls were forced to turn to Taliban religious schools to escape from numbness and depression and study there. The intention is not here to speak against religious schools, but the question is about the quality of education. There is no modern education in those schools and currently, tens of thousands of female students are studying in those schools. The education and training of girls in the atmosphere of religious schools makes them ideological and mentally and psychologically ready to accept the backward ideas and maybe after some time they themselves oppose reopening schools.
It has been reported that during the three years since the building of schools for girls, many of the girls were attracted to the Taliban ideas and some of them were married to the Taliban. Poverty is also another reason why the families agree on marriages even if the man is 20 or 30 years older than the girl.
The number of girls who are not willing to study in religious schools, have to deal with depression and destitution, and many of them end up in unwanted and early marriages.
In the poor and backward society, since girls do not have the opportunity to work and earn money, they are considered a burden on the family, and the heads of the families prefer to get them married to people who can provide them with a piece of bread.
Being a girl in Afghan society has a thousand pains and sufferings and one of them is being forced to marry. According to common social and traditional norms, girls have the duty to bear children and serve their husbands and be submissive to the men in the family and try not to step outside the home and not participate in any social activities.
Kankor top scorer calls for reopening of girl schools
Atal Khan Rahimzoy, the top scorer in the 1403 (solar year) Kankor exam, said he is very happy to get top score but expressed sadness over the participation of girls in the exam.
He called on the Taliban to let girls go to the schools and universities and said that girls above sixth grade should attend schools.
Rahimzoy, 18, had graduated from Habibia High School in Kabul, and now admitted to his desired faculty of Medical Sciences. He said that his family was very happy, and they were full of joy when the result was announced.
