Quiet revolution underway in Afghan girls’ schools

By Terry Friel

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (Reuters) – A quiet revolution is
going on in Afghanistan’s schools, behind the high walls and
the blue-uniformed police guards with their AK-47s.

“Afghanistan’s beautiful girls are learning!” proclaims a
cheerful U.N. poster at the Zarghona Ana school for girls in
the hot and dusty southern trading city of Kandahar, the
birthplace of the hardline Taliban.

During Taliban rule until 2001, girls’ schools were shut
down and women placed under virtual house arrest, allowed out
only with a male escort and wearing coverall burqas.

Now, schools have become the breeding ground for women’s
rights. And for teaching girls about the world outside.

“At first, only a few girls came, they were all afraid,”
says teacher Zarmina, who uses only one name. “We had no
chairs, no tables, they had to bring their own carpet to sit
on. Now, all the girls are coming.”

For Afghan women, barred for years from even the simplest
of jobs, school is often the first step outside the family
home.

Many of the more than 300 women candidates in last Sunday’s

elections for a national Wolesi Jirga, or House of the
People, and 34 provincial assemblies were teachers.

“Four years ago, we could not even go outside our home,”
says Zarghona Kaker, running for the Kandahar state assembly.
“We could not even go to the bazaar without a man.

“Now, we can run for the parliament.”

FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT

On Sunday, girls’ schools became women-only voting
stations, where women could come, throw off their head-to-toe
burqas and excitedly debate politics and their problems.

“I’m so happy,” says 11-year-old Fariba, wearing her
pinstriped school uniform of black and gray and no burqa. “I’m
learning here, it gives me a future — something to look
forward to.”

Three months ago, 18 students from Zarghona Ana school
became the first women to graduate since the early 1990s in
Afghanistan’s ancient capital and now its second city.

“There was a time, under the Taliban, when we didn’t even
know what education was. Now we are learning everything,” said
13-year-old Wajiha Hussaini.

She was one of the first students to come back to Zarghona
after the Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led forces. School then
meant just turning up, with no books, no blackboard and
untrained, volunteer teachers.

“We had a lot of problems,” she says. “We didn’t even have
chairs. And all the good teachers were in other countries
because of the fighting.”

Now, she wants to go to university and become a doctor, “to
help Afghan.”

Afghan women are tough, and determined.

Fariba, rushing to catch a crowded lorry, the only one that
will take her home through the hard-baked streets of Kandahar,
knows exactly what she wants.

“I want to be an engineer,” she says, looking anxiously at
the door, wanting to go. “I want to make buildings. I want to
build more schools.