Taliban threaten girls' education in Pakistan and Afghanistan

Typically when girls hit puberty, many worry about their clothes, hair, make-up, and other aesthetic issues; but not those in the Swat Valley of Northwest Pakistan, whose only concern is getting to school undetected.

Attacks on girls are not confined to the Swat Valley. Attacks have persisted in other parts of Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan.

As reported by Pakistani government officials on January 17, over 40,000 girls above the age of nine are deprived of education. A shortage of schooling resources is not the issue, but rather the fact that these girls are being beaten, burned with acid, shot, and even blown up whilst on their way to or from school.

Such attacks are blamed on Taliban militants, an integrity police whose aim is to enforce conservative Muslim rules. The Taliban are one of the mujahideen, or ‘holy warrior,’ groups that formed during the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan from 1979-89. After the withdrawal of Soviet forces, the Soviet government lost ground to the mujahideen. Since then, the Taliban have been a political-religious group seeking to implement their anti-foreign ideology and unite with their Pakistan brothers who feel the same way.

Since the 1990’s, a very strict interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law, instituted a ban on education for girls and forced most working women to return to their homes. When the Taliban took Kabul, they immediately forbade girls to go to school. Moreover, women were barred from working outside the home, precipitating a crisis in healthcare and education.

UNICEF’s Senior Emergency Advisor in Geneva, Dr. Angela Raven-Roberts, explains that the major issue associated with educating girls and women has always been that to the Taliban, “the liberation of women that has been an example of a foreign ideology that needed to be resisted.”
Dr. Raven-Roberts underlines the significance of this issue and the far-reaching effects it has on Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as on their relations with the rest of the world. UNICEF has “shown that research has revealed that having even a minimally educated mother has been proved to have enormous benefits for children. Therefore, any attempt to constrain this is very serious,” she says. Attempts from international organizations to negotiate with and to convince the Taliban that educated Islamic women “can indeed contribute to a healthy nation” and that “it is in your [the Taliban] interest to help.”

Up to this point, fighting has intensified. Senior military officials report that in the past month, five schools were bombed, over 170 destroyed, and 13 girls were beheaded. Many families have fled to nearby cities, while police officers, all of which are corrupt, have deserted or refused to serve.

In December of last year, the militants’ spokesman, Muslim Khan issued an ultimatum to the AP from an undisclosed location telephone call warning parents against sending daughters into the Pakistani school system, and accusing the government of accepting a British system of obscenity and vulgarity and teaching ideas and concepts which are ‘un-Islamic.’

However, some parents and their children remain skeptical of this statement, believing that the right and value of education are too large to sacrifice. In some cases, home schools continue to function without the notice of the Taliban, either because they are so covert, or because the Taliban chose to ignore them. At the same time, many children of the Taliban benefit from the allowance of being home-schooled.

In an anarchist society of instability, especially were robbery, rape, and murder are frequent, some accept the promises of the Taliban to provide them with simple solutions and safety. Raven-Roberts says that this is a multidimensional issue where “some see their strict rule as protection while others see it as oppression.” It is difficult for the government to embark on its role to protect the people when people are rallying in support of the Taliban because they see the government as unable to provide health, security, and stability.

Thanks to a formidable secret project, thousands across the country (as well as in Afghanistan) are receiving an education, although they are at great risk for doing so. The courage of Afghan, Pakistani, and foreign aid workers giving their lives in subverting the Taliban orders. With the help of the humanitarian affairs section of the UK’s Department for International Development, they have been providing underground guerilla aid during the Taliban years by supplying funds, books, and other equipment.

With an 11 percent increase in the females’ attendance, the project has been quite successful. In fact, other organizations such as Save the Children Fund and Care and the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan have stepped in to fuel resources.

Although some may have access to education in secret, Amnesty International, an NGO committed to ending human rights abuses, labels the corrupt justice systems in the Swat Valley and in Afghanistan “too weak to offer effective protection of women’s right to life and physical security, and itself subjects them to discrimination and abuse.”

The failure of both countries’ governments to adequately halt the abuses puts a strain on international relations and weakens economic ties for Afghanistan and Pakistan to the rest of the world.