EDITORIAL: Seven months after Taliban takeover of Kabul, girls’ secondary schools were opened on Wednesday, but within hours the education ministry ordered them shut, leaving many girls in tears and their parents disappointed and confused over the policy reversal. No explanation was given for ordering the girls home.
In fact, education ministry spokesman Aziz Ahmad Rayan, who had earlier claimed reopening the schools was always a government objective, told journalists after the abrupt closure “we are not allowed to comment on this.” There is no logical explanation for the decision to first open and then shut girls’ secondary schools except policy differences among the hard-line and moderate elements within the Taliban leadership as reflected in several other measures that contradict their initial promises and statements.
Initially, the Taliban spokesman Suhail Shaheen had assured the international community of the new government’s commitment to women’s right to education all the way up to the university level, as well as work in the light of Islamic teachings.
Boys and girls in primary schools were allowed to resume classes in about two months’ time, but girls’ secondary and higher education institutions remained closed, ostensibly, to make security arrangements and ensure schools were segregated and operated according to “Islamic principles”. That despite the fact that all government-run schools were already segregated. So far, women have not been allowed to return to their jobs.
Suhail Shaheen had also said women will be expected to wear the hijab but not burqa. Yet the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has put up posters all over Kabul featuring an image of all covering burqa to show what women are expected to wear in public. They have also been barred from travelling long distances without being chaperoned by a close male relative, and transporters directed not to give them rides unless clad in burqas.
All this is being done in the name of “Islamic rules”, though the restrictions being imposed come from retrogressive local customs and traditions prevalent in some parts of Afghanistan, especially in the Taliban’s spiritual centre, Kandahar. According to their lights, Women are mere possessions, to be owned and controlled by men.
As mentioned in these columns before, the one Islamic tradition that has remained unchanged and unchangeable from the time of the holy Prophet (PBUH) is that of Hajj/ Umra where women cover their bodies with ihram and heads with hijab or abaya, but unlike the burqa face is not covered. What’s more, there is no segregation during the performance of obligatory rites.
Men and women walk side by side. As regards work, the holy Prophet’s (PBUH) first wife Hazarat Khadija (RA), a role model for Muslims, was a business woman, which means women are free to work in fields of their choice. No less important, Islam gave women the right to own and manage property more than 14 centuries ago whereas the European women gained that right only in the late 18th century.
By restricting women’s freedoms the Afghan Taliban are doing a disservice to the teachings of Islam and damaging their own broader interests. The shutting down of girls schools has been widely deplored. Even before it, the UN Special Procedures Group had issued a report expressing serious concern over the women’s situation saying “Taliban leaders were “attempting to erase women and girls from public life through systematic gender-based discrimination & violence.”
As long as these policies persist the international community will remain reluctant to accord recognition to the Taliban regime.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2022
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