Girls in Afghanistan hoping to attend lessons beyond the sixth grade faced a new ban on Wednesday, turned away from classrooms amid a new move of the Taliban government to limit education for female students.
Despite a previous green light, the Taliban-run education ministry announced that all schools will remain closed for girls beyond grade six until further notice, the state-run news agency Bakhtar reported.
In the meantime, a school uniform for girls is to be designed based on Shariah law, Afghan culture and tradition.
Schoolgirls who had been waiting impatiently for classes to resume since the Taliban’s return to power were disappointed when they arrived for classes on Wednesday. Many returned home with tearful eyes.
"We are also human, why we shouldn’t be able to go to school? What is our fault? The tears that I’m crying is the blood that my heart is bleeding,” a schoolgirl told a TOLOnews reporter as she burst into tears on the live program.
The decision has already sparked wide reactions.
On Tuesday, education ministry spokesperson Aziz Ahmad Royan told Deutsche Presse-Agentur (dpa) that schools will reopen for girls but under specific conditions such as separation of school buildings, observance of hijab face coverings and teaching by female instructors.
In traditional Afghan society, boys and girls were already attending separate classes and all female students and teachers must wear the hijab.
Following the Taliban takeover in August, hardliners have imposed more restrictions.
For example, girls and women have been deprived of their social life such as their right to education, work and freedom of movement. Those who protested have been suppressed.
The Taliban deprived women of work and education when they were ruling the country during the '90s.
