Taliban's exclusion of girls from schools hits 1,000 days

Afghanistan is set to mark 1,000 dark days since the Taliban banned girls from attending school beyond the age of 12, dimming any prospect of women being allowed back into the formal education system in the near future.

- ARPAN RAI

Soon after overthrowing the previous democratically elected government backed by the US and its Western military partners in August 2021, the Taliban banned more than a million girls from attending secondary school. It later banned women from attending university as well. Saturday 8 June marks the 1,000th day of the ban.

After initially indicating a willingness to reopen the schools, the Taliban warned in March they might never allow them to function again, at least not in the way they did under the Ashraf Ghani administration. The hardline Islamist group similarly prohibited formal education for women when it ruled in the 1990s. As a justification for the ban, the Taliban claim that Islamic law doesn’t allow for free mixing of men and women.

The ongoing ban on their formal education has confined many girls and women to their homes and left them vulnerable to early marriage. “Many families believe the only solution for their daughters is to arrange their marriage,” said Salma Niazi, an Afghan journalist now living in exile.