The suicide bombing of a young girl’s life: Nilaab and her mother, Pierre and the women of KABUL, Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan — She was a girl of just 5 when the Taliban took over Afghanistan the first time, and her parents did not hesitate: With the militants bent on imposing a puritanical form of Islam, the family packed their bags and fled.
The new government was quick with assurances that this time would be different, that the Taliban of the 2020s was not the Taliban of the 1990s, and that there would be no brutal campaign of repression against the women of Afghanistan.
Nilaab thought that they may have been telling the truth. She hoped so. She had returned to her homeland as a teenager after a decade in exile, and she was not eager to repeat the experience.
After the tragic event, Pierre and his colleagues went to Rome to attend a demonstration by Afghans.
The posters sent to me by an afghan friend were promoting a protest against attacks on the Hazara ethnic group, who have historically been targeted by Sunni militant groups.
The protest was emotional and intense. Young ladies hit the ground while playing dead when a smoke flare was set off. They were doing a re-enactment. A mother clutched her child and sobbed into his hair. I saw tears everywhere I looked. It was heartbreaking.
I saw two men holding a poster with pictures of the young women who died in the suicide bombing, and immediately recognized two of their faces: Marzia and her cousin, Hajar.
I was looking at photos of the girls that Marzia’s family sent to us. The men holding the poster were shown the story on my phone. A man in a blue sweater said he was their teacher as he looked at me.
The Taliban took away our hope. The female students had their last exam tomorrow,” she said. “But the Taliban closed the gates of university today.”
They asked the principal to show them surveillance footage from inside the classrooms; there were cameras everywhere throughout the school for security reasons. The principal obliged.
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That’s when the Taliban men saw one of Hussaini’s lectures. His degrees were economics and business management, but he was a math teacher. In the footage, he was lecturing about how worse off the economy was since the Taliban banned women from getting an education and being able to work.
He stopped teaching, abruptly ended his class and fled through a back door. He went home and left Kabul the next day. He took refuge in Afghanistan’s Daykundi Province, which is far from the capital and has a majority of ethnic Hazaras.
I asked Hussaini how well he knew Marzia and Hajar and what they were like. His face was full of light. He said that they were from humble families and that they loved learning. His top students were them. If one of them had the best grade in the class, then the other would be number 2. He said their love for learning energized him.
The girls told him something at a local event called Teachers Day. It was Oct. 5, 2020. Marzia and Hajar were the ones who told him they would make his face white.
It was not something I’d heard before. Hussaini explained that it’s a phrase used in Afghanistan. It indicates that they were going to make him proud of their accomplishments.
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The university ban comes weeks after Afghan girls took their high school graduation exams, even though they have been banned from classrooms since the Taliban took over the country last year.
The Taliban have implemented their strict interpretation of Islamic law despite initial promises of a more moderate rule for women’s and minorities.
After the US left last year, the Taliban returned to power after they were ousted in 2001, but only after being aided by Osama bin Laden.
The decision was announced after a government meeting. The spokesman for the ministry told universities to inform the ministry as soon as possible and to implement the ban once it is in place.
Western diplomats have repeatedly said that the Taliban lifting their ban on women and girls seeking education is key for discussions to begin on international recognition.
I can’t fulfill my hopes. A journalism and communication student at a university said that everything is going away before his eyes. She did not want to be identified because she was afraid of reprisals.
“Is being a girl a crime? If that’s the case, I wish I wasn’t a girl,” she added. “My father had dreams for me, that his daughter would become a talented journalist in the future. That is no longer standing. So, you tell me, how will a person feel in this situation?”
I will continue my studies no matter what. I’m starting online studies. She said that she’d have to leave the country if it doesn’t work.
“It’s difficult to imagine how a country can develop, can deal with all of the challenges that it has, without the active participation of women and the education,” Guterres said.
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Abruptly Reneged on a Promise to Give Women a Chance to Study Laws of Human Rights
Robert Wood, the deputy U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said the Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans.
The Taliban were supposed to represent Afghanistan at the United Nations, but that request was deferred once more, despite the fact that the previous government still held the seat.
Afghanistan’s charge d’affairs Naseer Ahmed Faiq said at the U.N. that the announcement “marks a new low in violation of most fundamental and universal human rights for all of humanity.”
A spokesman for the ministry of higher education, Ziaullah Hashmi confirmed the news to NPR and tweeted out the announcement himself with the words “important news.”
Zahra replied to a question about how she felt by asking “What news could be worse than this?” She requested her family name not be used, fearing she’d be identified by Taliban officials. I have been shaking with anger. I’m not able to cry.
While they had repeatedly promised the international community that the ban was temporary, in March the group abruptly reneged on a promise to allow most girls back to school. The decision was made so suddenly that many female students had returned to class when their teachers were forced to kick them out. The students were in tears.
The Taliban officials gave many excuses for the continued ban, from wanting to review the girls curriculum to discussions over their uniforms.
There was a quirk in the decision-making process that allowed women to attend university, with strict conditions, including covering their hair and face at all times and wearing loose black robes. It is not clear how many women were still attending university.
What does the Taliban think about women in the United States and why does it matter if they are allowed to stay in their homes?” Baheer told Akhundzada
He thinks that certain Taliban officials are trying to spread the rumor to get international pressure that would prompt the leadership to reconsider the ban.
“I genuinely think that the man in charge thinks that this is what an Islamic society ought to look like,” Baheer says, referring to Akhundzada. He had a specific view about where women and girls should be in society, in their homes. I think that this is a gender apartheid. This is something very close to that.
The Taliban’s move quickly triggered reactions from the international community, which has refused to recognize the Islamic group’s takeover of Afghanistan.
For women in Afghanistan, the dream of always continuing their studies is distant because the few that pursued higher education did so too far away.
Now, she said, “everything is over for me. I wanted to be an engineer and a good person in my community and I wanted to be educated so I could serve people. I can’t do that anymore. Life means nothing for me.”
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In one instance, a teacher reported security forces barging into his class, shouting at girls to go home. “Some of students started verbal arguments with them, but they didn’t listen. Waheed Hamidi, English-language teacher at a tuition center in Kabul, said that his students left their classes crying.
The move was expected – and dreaded – by observers as the Taliban’s supreme leader Mullah Haibutullah Akhundzada imposes his vision of an Afghanistan which is ultra-conservative, even by the hardline group’s standards.
And in a quirk of contradictory decision-making, the former minister of higher education Abdul Baqi Haqqani allowed women to attend universities, albeit under strict conditions, including wearing face coverings and abiding by strict segregation. Haqqani was replaced by a man who stated his opposition to women receiving an education. He’s known to be very close to Akhundzada.
A woman who runs three tuition centers for high school-aged girls is waiting to hear if she can keep operating.
“I don’t sleep,” said Mohammadi in broken English. “All the girls calling me and I promise I will stay for them,” she said – that she would defend their interests. She broke into tears.
Mohammadi said she only employed and taught women, abiding by the Taliban’s strict gender segregation rules. Her students wear black robes and black face veils to and from school to ensure they do not offend patrolling Taliban forces. “They wear the hijab,” she said. The follow “all the rules of Taliban.”
The Taliban’s return to power through an agreement with the US is shocking and incomprehensible, according to the U.S. envoy who brokered the deal. It enraged Afghans on Twitter. It was felt to rouse the ire of former diplomats.
The last civilian representative of NATO to Afghanistan. , Stefano Pontecorvo retweeted another former Afghan diplomat, Jawed Ludin, saying, “I’m shocked by how so many people are shocked. What did you all expect? Really?”