Girls, women suffer under Taliban rule in Afghanistan after Biden’s withdrawal

The disastrous withdrawal by the U.S. military from Afghanistan had many consequences, with one major consequence being the Taliban closing schools and classes meant for women.

NPR reported that Afghan women are holding secret schools to circumvent the Taliban’s clamping down on education for young women.

After the U.S. invasion of the central Asian country, women have had the opportunity to go to school, take classes, and graduate. But these education opportunities quickly disappeared when the radical Islamic regime, the Taliban, banned education for women in the spring of 2021.

The United Nations reported that about 850,000 Afghan girls have not been able to attend high school since the Taliban seized power in 2021. The regime initially allowed girls to go to class in March, but then changed their minds and sent the girls home when they arrived at school.

As a result, teenage girls are going to secret schools held by women not much older than the students. NPR quoted one teacher, who said, “When the Taliban said girls can’t go to secondary school anymore, I thought to myself, ‘what can I do?’” She wondered, “How can I raise the morale of the girls around me?”

The overwhelming answer for this teacher, and other secret teachers in Afghanistan, is to teach classes in secret.

One of the ways that these teachers have circumvented the Taliban’s ban on female education is integrating curriculum in religious schools, called madrassas, or in tutoring centers.

But the danger is far from over; in one tragic event, over 80 school-aged girls were killed by a bomb when they were leaving a school in 2021.

NPR quoted a Taliban official, who said that women who were enrolled in college by the time that the Taliban seized power could finish their college education. However, because of strict dress codes and a lack of professors willing to teach female students, many dropped out.

As much as President Joe Biden and the Democratic Party claim to be the political party of independent women, the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 exposed their hypocrisy when it came to international women’s issues. For decades, the U.S. empowered women and female education as a part of its presence in Afghanistan, but when the U.S. left, women were left without the education options they previously enjoyed.

A rallying cry from the Left used to be that the political Right waged a “war on women.” Now, as Afghan women and girls struggle to learn or find places to learn, the war on Afghan women is being waged without a sound from the Left.

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