Activists help Afghan girls bypass Taliban ban on education

Intrepid activists are organizing educational opportunities for the girls in Afghanistan who have been banned from returning to secondary schools by the Taliban, reports the Washington Examiner.

Batol Gholami coordinated an online class for five girls in her home province of Baghlan through the Afghanistan Youth Leaders Assembly, an initiative she founded focused on peace, education access and gender equality. The girls had reached out to her following her evacuation with U.S. troops in Aug. 2021.

She now has 200 Afghan girls enrolled in her second three-month round of AYLA online English classes.

Gholami said one young student, who was forced to stop her education after being forced to marry at age 15, plans to teach what she learned in the first round of AYLA classes to other girls in her community.

Students “had totally lost hope” because of the Taliban’s return to power, Gholani told the Examiner. She is proud to see them spreading education.

A third round of AYLA online classes on English and STEM topics is planned to start in mid-April with 300 girls, thanks to donors who have funded Wi-fi access for each student.

Another activist is Dewa Khan, a British resident of Afghanistan who has been secretly paying Afghan teachers to teach 35 girls secretly in their homes. She plans to raise funds through the Dewa Trust Foundation to fund additional opportunities, both in-person and online.

“If a mother is educated, she will make her next two generations educated,” said Khan. “A mother will never let her child become a Taliban.”

“They can kill one of us, two of us, a hundred of us, but they cannot kill the idea [or] our courage,” Khan added, saying she did not fear punishment.

However, these clandestine efforts to educate girls are also illegal. One special immigrant visa applicant said her late mother taught girls secretly under the previous Taliban regime, only stopping when they arrested and tortured her husband.

Nonetheless, activists like Gholami and Khan are keeping hope alive for the next generation Afghan girls through technology, passion, and organizing.