An order was given by the Taliban to shut down girls’ secondary schools in Afghanistan on Wednesday just hours after they reopened, an official confirmed, sparking confusion and heartbreak over the policy reversal by the hardline Islamist group.
“Yes, it’s true,” Taliban spokesman Inamullah Samangani told AFP when asked to confirm reports that girls had been ordered home.
He would not immediately explain the reasoning, while education ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Rayan said: “We are not allowed to comment on this”.
An AFP team was filming at Zarghona High School in the capital, Kabul, when a teacher entered and said class was over.
Crestfallen students, back at school for the first time since the Taliban seized power in August last year, tearfully packed up their belongings and filed out.
“I see my students crying and reluctant to leave classes,” said Palwasha, a teacher at Omra Khan girls’ school in Kabul.
“It is very painful to see your students crying.”
United Nations envoy Deborah Lyons called reports of the closure “disturbing”.
“If true, what could possibly be the reason?” she tweeted.
When the Taliban took over last August, schools were closed because of the Covid-19 pandemic, but only boys and younger girls were allowed to resume classes two months later.
There were fears the Taliban would shut down all formal education for girls, as they did during their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001.
The international community has made the right to education for all a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition of the new Taliban regime, with several nations and organizations offering to pay teachers.
On Wednesday, the order for girls’ secondary schools to resume appeared to only be patchily observed, with reports emerging from some parts of the country including the Taliban’s spiritual heartland of Kandahar that classes would restart next month instead.
But several did reopen in the capital and elsewhere, including Herat and Panjshir — temporarily at least.
“All the students that we are seeing today are very happy, and they are here with open eyes,” Latifa Hamdard, principal of Gawharshad Begum High School in Herat, told AFP.
The education ministry said reopening the schools was always a government objective and the Taliban were not bowing to international pressure.
“We are doing it as part of our responsibility to provide education and other facilities to our students,” ministry spokesman Rayan told AFP Tuesday.
The Taliban had insisted they wanted to ensure schools for girls aged 12 to 19 were segregated and would operate according to Islamic principles.
The Taliban have imposed a slew of restrictions on women, effectively banning them from many government jobs, policing what they wear and preventing them from travelling outside of their cities alone.
