Registration, EFL
In a surprising move, President Hamid Karzaiâs government has stopped thousands of young Afghan married women from attending school. The move, according to government sources, is aimed at discouraging fraternisation between girls and married students which can lead to âdiscussion on sexâ.
The affected women have called the development âshockingâ and a âbig blowâ to female education. Interestingly, one of the charges against the ousted Taliban regime was the way it denied women their basic rights and freedoms, including the right to education. âAfter the Taliban regime fell, we thought the new dispensation would give women more opportunities to exploit their potential. That dream remains unfulfilled,â says an Afghan woman in Peshawar. TFT sources in Kabul disclosed last week that a mid-70s law stating that married women cannot attend high school was re-enacted in September this year by President Karzaiâs government and the education ministry in Kabul has ordered strict implementation of the rule across the country. Deputy Education Minister Sayed Ahmad Sarwari did not know the exact number of women who were expelled, but sources estimate the decision will âlikely impact more than two to three thousands married studentsâ. What makes the decision worse is the fact that in the Afghan society most girls are married off at a very young age. âThis means the majority of them will be unable to get high-school education,â says an observer.
The Northern Alliance actually contains Islamist factions that could be considered moderate only in comparison to the Taliban. Although Ahmed Shah Masood was a pragmatist, his Jamaat-e-Islami party developed out of the Muslim Brotherhood, and many of its members are fundamentalists, including itâs leader, Rabbani. Their main dispute with the Taliban was over ethnicity and power politics, rather than on treatment of women.
The proponents of the move defend it by saying that it is only meant to âprotect unmarried girls from hearing explicit details about sex from their married classmatesâ. The opponents say by this logic married men must also be banned from attending school.
| That sounds fair, but fair isn't a concept that does well in Muslimdom... |
An Afghan woman TFT spoke with was livid. âAnd what would stop an unmarried woman from knowing about sex within the family circle or through friends outside the school. Would the government prevent girls from fraternizing with married women even at home?â she asks, adding: âThis is just incredible.â
Prob'ly. They want that wedding night to be a surprise. It's kinda like the old Benny Hill routine, where he wakes up with his wife pounding him with a shoe:
"Wot the 'ell is that for?"
"That's for bein' a lousy lover!"
Whereupon he proceeds to beat the little woman with a shoe.
"Wot the 'ell was that for?"
"'At's for knowin' the difference!"
Strong feelings of inadequacy, anyone? Little Pee-pee syndrome, perhaps? |
After the Taliban were overthrown, one of the first signs that the authorities were putting the past behind them was the reopening of girlsâ schools. While the law on married women remained, it was not implemented while the liberal-minded Rasool Amin was the education minister. President Karzai did not pick him up after the cabinet was reshuffled in June 2002 following the Loya Jirga. The ministry is now run by a leader of the Northern Alliance. While western NGOs try to better the plight of Afghanistanâs lost generation of pupils, setting up literacy classes for girls who could not attend schools, religious leaders at places have banned these classes. âThey want to keep married women totally illiterate,â says an observer. Maulvi Abdul Haq, one of the clerics in Kabul, insists that women should be denied education âbecause Allah says in the Holy Quran that women should stay at home and not expose their beauty.â He added: âAt the literacy centres, male strangers visiting the classes may see the girls and that is not permitted.â |