A plea for education: Girls urge Islamic Emirate to reopen schools

KABUL (TOLOnews): With the start of the new academic year and the ringing of the school bell, girls above the sixth grade have once again expressed their sorrow over their uncertain fate. Female students have once again asked the Islamic Emirate to allow them to attend school.

Zahra, who had purchased a white school scarf for the academic year 1401 (solar year), told a TOLOnews reporter that she is eagerly waiting to go to school so she can become a doctor in the future. This eleventh-grade student added, “I had bought this scarf in 1401; unfortunately, I haven’t been able to wear it until now. I am very sad, and I believe that all Afghan girls are sad.”

Sohiba, a seventh-grade student, said, “We girls cannot go to school again this year. I plead with the Islamic Emirate to open the schools for us.” The United States Department of State said that the deprivation of Afghan girls from education is “heartbreaking and troubling.”

The deputy spokesman for the US Department of State, Vedant Patel, said in a press briefing that if the Islamic Emirate desires international recognition, ensuring women’s rights is the highest priority.

Patel added that this is the third year that Afghan girls and women are being deprived of education, and this issue is a priority in Washington’s policies regarding Afghanistan.

“And so the fact that this is another year in which Afghan women and girls don’t have access to these kinds of schools, it’s heartbreaking and it’s troubling,” Patel noted. As academic years 1400 through 1402 (solar years) passed without girls in schools, Islamic Emirate and Education Ministry officials haven’t discussed their return for the start of 1403.