'What was their sacrifice for?': Devastation for female Afghan students stripped of education - CNN

Kabul, Afghanistan CNN  — 

The 21-year-old pupil had been studying hard for weeks arsenic she prepared for the last exams of her archetypal twelvemonth of university. She was astir done, with conscionable 2 exams left, erstwhile she heard the news: the Taliban authorities was suspending assemblage education for each pistillate students successful Afghanistan.

“I did not halt and kept studying for the exam,” she told CNN connected Wednesday. “I went to the assemblage successful the greeting anyway.”

But it was nary use. She arrived to find equipped Taliban guards astatine the gates of her field successful Kabul, the Afghan capital, turning distant each pistillate pupil who tried to enter.

“It was a unspeakable scene,” she said. “Most of the girls, including myself, were crying and asking them to fto america spell successful … If you suffer each your rights and you can’t bash thing astir it, however would you feel?”

CNN is not naming the pupil for information reasons.

The Taliban’s determination connected Tuesday was conscionable the latest measurement successful its brutal crackdown connected the freedoms of Afghan women, pursuing its takeover of the state successful August 2021.

Though the insurgent radical has repeatedly claimed that it would support the rights of girls and women, it has successful information done the opposite, stripping distant the hard-won freedoms they person fought tirelessly for implicit the past 2 decades.

Some of its astir striking restrictions person been astir education, with girls barred from returning to secondary schools successful March. The determination devastated galore students and their families, who described to CNN their dashed dreams of becoming doctors, teachers oregon engineers.

To the Kabul student, the nonaccomplishment of her acquisition was an adjacent bigger daze than the weaponry attacks and unit she has antecedently witnessed.

“I ever thought that we could flooded our sorrow and fearfulness by getting educated,” she said. “However, this (time) is different. It is conscionable unacceptable and unbelievable.”

The quality was met with wide condemnation and dismay, with galore satellite leaders – and salient Afghan figures – urging the Taliban to reverse its decision.

In a connection connected Twitter, erstwhile Afghan President Ashraf Ghani – who fled Kabul erstwhile the Taliban seized powerfulness – called the radical illegitimate rulers holding “the full colonisation hostage.”

“The existent occupation of women’s acquisition and enactment successful the state is precise serious, sad, and the astir evident and cruel illustration of sex apartheid successful the 21st century,” Ghani wrote. “I person said it again and again that if 1 miss becomes literate, she changes 5 aboriginal generations, and if 1 miss remains illiterate, she causes the demolition of 5 aboriginal generations.”

He praised those successful Afghanistan protesting the Taliban’s decision, calling them “pioneers.”

Another erstwhile Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, besides expressed “deep regret” implicit the suspension. The country’s “development, population, and self-sufficiency beryllium connected the acquisition and grooming of each child, girl, and lad of this land,” helium wrote.

Other overseas officials and leaders issued akin statements, including the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, US State Department spokesperson Ned Price, and US Ambassador to Afghanistan Karen Decker.

The overseas ministries of France, Germany, Pakistan, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia criticized the determination arsenic well.

“Preventing fractional of the colonisation from contributing meaningfully to nine and the system volition person a devastating interaction connected the full country,” said the UN ngo successful Afghanistan successful a statement.

“Education is simply a basal quality right,” it added. “Excluding women and girls from secondary and tertiary acquisition not lone denies them this right, it denies Afghan nine arsenic a full the payment of the contributions that women and girls person to offer. It denies each of Afghanistan a future.”

Female students successful Afghanistan accidental their futures present prevarication successful limbo, with nary clarity connected what volition go of their education.

“I americium inactive hopeful that things would get backmost to normal, but I don’t cognize however agelong it volition take,” said the Kabul student. “Now galore girls, including me, are conscionable reasoning (about) what is next, what tin we bash to get retired of this situation.”

“I americium not quitting,” she added, saying she would see going “somewhere else” if Afghanistan continued banning pistillate students.

Another 21-year-old, Maryam, is intimately acquainted with the dangers of pursuing acquisition arsenic a woman. As a precocious schoolhouse student, she’d been successful the vicinity of an onslaught connected Kabul University respective years ago, and remembers being evacuated “while bullets were flying implicit our heads.”

Then successful September, she hardly survived a termination onslaught astatine the Kaaj acquisition center successful Kabul, which killed astatine slightest 25 people, astir of whom are believed to beryllium young women. The onslaught sparked nationalist outrage and horror, with dozens of women taking to the streets of Kabul afterward successful protest.

Maryam, who is being identified by 1 sanction for her security, missed the blast by conscionable seconds. When she ran backmost into her classroom, she was met with the scattered bodies of her friends.

Each brushwood with decease cemented her determination not lone to prosecute her ain ambitions – but the “dreams of each those champion friends of excavation who died earlier my eyes,” she said.

Though she was accepted into a bachelors programme weeks aft the September bombing, she decided to defer her assemblage plans for a year, alternatively returning to rebuild the destroyed acquisition halfway from scratch. She wanted to promote different girls to proceed their educations, she said.

Now, those dreams person been shattered by Tuesday’s announcement.

“I americium conscionable lost. I don’t cognize what to bash and what to say,” she told CNN. “Since past night, I person been imagining each person of excavation who mislaid their lives successful the Kaaj attack. What was their sacrifice for?”

“We request to get education; we person fixed a batch of sacrifice for it. It is our lone anticipation for a amended future.”