A Year From College, The Taliban Banned Her From School
As her first day of school under Taliban rule approached, Sajida Hussaini was hopeful. Her father, a teacher for 17 years, and her mother had instilled in her and her siblings the value of education, and now she was one year away from graduating high school.
Even though the Taliban had taken over the country last summer, marking an end to many of the rights she and other Afghan girls had enjoyed all their lives, the regime had announced that it would reopen schools on March 23 and permit girls to attend.
But when Sajida and her classmates arrived at the school’s front gate, administrators informed them that girls beyond sixth grade were no longer allowed to enter the classrooms. Many of the girls broke into tears. “I will never forget that moment in my life,” Sajida said. “It was a dark day.”
Sajida was among a million or so girls in Afghanistan who were preparing to return to their classrooms after an eight-month hiatus. With the Taliban out of power in the early decades of the 21st century, girls and women across the country had gained new freedoms that were suddenly thrust back into question when the fundamentalist group swept through Kabul in August. In early statements to the international community, the Taliban signaled that it would loosen some of its policies restricting women’s rights, including the education ban. But that has not been the case, and when the day to reopen schools came, it dawned on Sajida and