There was once an Afghanistan that thrived in development,
where women were free to be human beings. There was a time when Afghanistan
flourished under the aegis of an educational and business system, when its
people were educated within the confines of the country. And then came war. The
war(s) opened the floodgates for the advent of the Taliban, a radical segment
of the Afghan population that decided to be the moral police.
And then came the dark underbelly of life that would grow to
be reality for myriads of women in Afghanistan. The Taliban banned education
for women, forced their confinement, mandated that a man of the house be the
ones in charge of women within, removed every semblance to a life that would
encourage modernity, and forced women to live a life that would be deeply
embroiled in fear. Though the Karzai administration, post 9/11, has relaxed a
lot of harsh policies concerning women, the prevalence of warlords and the
looming fear of the rise of the Taliban keep women confined. Domestic violence
is perpetrated liberally, where women find themselves leered at and harassed on
the streets by miscreants, where the threat of rape looms large, where women
must cow down to men in a tautly male-driven society. Despite the cumbersome
burden comprising a heady mix of fear, threats and penury, women in Afghanistan
are firm in their resolve, to rise above the thumb that pins them tight to the
ground.
Adding to the already dismal state of affairs is a massive
campaign launched by the Taliban – that education of girls is outlawed on all
fronts. Arson and poison attacks are among the activity that targets those who
teach girls. Young boys conduct searches of their fellow pupils and make notes
in registers, doing everything in their capacity to avert a possible attack.
These boys are forced to be on the frontline, stationed at the entrances of
their schools, so that any possible attack would target them first before
anything happens inside the school. A child is forced to be the keeper of his
education. It is Hobson’s choice for many – either stay at home and struggle to
find a menial job that pays pittance, or continue at school while braving the
propensity for violence. A police checkpoint, student patrollers and vigilante
teachers are their only defence against any prospect of violence in antagonism
to the running of schools.
Afghanistan wears a cadaverous look. Schools have been burnt
down across the country. Hundreds of children have been hospitalized after they
drank contaminated water. Their teachers were attacked – two vicious actions
targeting the running of a school. 1996 to 2001 was a dark patch of five years
in Afghanistan under the yoke of the Taliban regime. Islamic instruction was
the only permitted education – women and girls were to be excluded.
Has the country returned to those primitive times? In
November 2008, a bunch of men threw acid on a group of 15 girls who walked to
school in Kandahar. The Taliban insurgency was escalating, sending waves of
fear across the country. Acid attacks are commonly being used as tools of
choice targeting women in Afghanistan - from domestic violence to
no-being-educated violence. Despite this, girls have been returning to school –
among the only few gains in their crusade for civil liberties. The Taliban, for
its part, seems to be pursuing a vociferous campaign in furtherance of shutting
down schools before the American troop drawdown in 2014. In pursuit of this
campaign of theirs, the Taliban has either carried out the attacks on their
own, or, have gone to such low levels as to force children to poison their
fellow pupils.
15 people were arrested for attacks in Takhar, in the north.
They were mostly Taliban, but also included two girls in their fold – each of
whom was given 50,000 Afghanis to smuggle toxic powder into the school and to
slip it into water tanks that supply drinking water to the school. One of the
girls was forced to spray poison in her classroom, by her own relative, who
followed her to school repeatedly. The threat of abduction and death loomed
over her head, though for her complicity in the crime, she is both ashamed and
upset, per a video released in Afghanistan. However, the Taliban have denied
involvement – claiming that these things were endeavours to pockmark their
reputation. They laid claim to being antagonistic not to education itself, but
to schools that propagate anti-Islamic teachings in violation of Afghanistan’s
national sovereignty. Some contend that militia groups set up by the government
have a hand in the spate of attacks, while some more contend that external
forces are trying to be a spanner in the works as Afghanistan prepares to take
responsibility for its security after nearly 11 years of international support.
The few girls that go to school huddle in bunches, seeking
safety in numbers and crowds. Some brave the distances and hours without food
or water, neither carrying nor eating anything on offer – lest they be
poisoned.
Schools across the country have remained closed, though.
2,00,000 children are left without access to education and most of them are
girls. This drives home one very poignant point, begging the asking, will
Afghanistan sustain and foster respect for women’s and children’s rights once
the international forces leave?
