Sources in Helmand say the Taliban have tortured a woman in the province for teaching young girls in secret and have detained her husband. According to the sources, the woman was teaching computer skills to girls. When detaining the teacher’s husband, the Taliban also beat the girls who had come to attend the training classes.
Karim (pseudonym) says the woman who was teaching computer skills to girls was trying, under difficult circumstances, to provide them with an opportunity to learn, but this activity was met with a violent reaction from the Taliban. According to him, Taliban fighters tortured the woman and also beat the girls who were present in the class.
Asad (pseudonym) says the treatment of the female students has created fear among families who, despite the restrictions, are trying to ensure their children are not deprived of education. He adds that when a girl faces violence simply for wanting to learn computer skills, other families also become afraid to send their daughters to such classes. As a result, their educational opportunities are shrinking by the day.
Osman (pseudonym) says the woman’s husband has also been detained by the Taliban. According to him, the woman’s family is worried about her condition and that of her husband, and there is no clear information about her husband’s fate.
Meanwhile, Maryam (pseudonym), a computer science student, says that today the world is moving toward technology at great speed. Computer education is no longer an extra subject; it is a basic necessity. Girls, too, should have the opportunity to learn this skill and prepare for their future.
This comes as a session of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), held the previous day on the situation in Afghanistan, expressed serious concern over the continued deprivation of Afghan women and girls of their right to education and work, and said the Taliban must lift these bans.
Nasir Ahmad Andisha, Afghanistan’s representative to the United Nations (UN), told the Security Council session the previous day that the exclusion of women is not only a women’s rights issue but also harms Afghanistan’s economy, health, education, development and long-term stability. According to him, no political process can have legitimacy without women’s participation in decisions about the country’s future.
Several members of the Security Council and UN member states at the session, referring to the restrictions imposed by the Taliban, stressed that the exclusion of women and girls from society and their “organized persecution and repression” by the Taliban must be condemned. According to them, the deprivation of millions of women and girls of their basic rights is not only a human rights issue but also carries long-term consequences for security, peace and freedom in Afghanistan.
Mike Waltz, the United States (US) ambassador to the UN, sharply criticized the Taliban’s repression and discrimination against women at the Security Council session on Wednesday. Referring to remarks by Meryl Streep, the well-known American actress, about women being confined to their homes, he said that “a female cat in Kabul has more rights than an Afghan woman,” because it can leave the house and see sunlight.
Waltz described the five year deprivation of women and girls from education as tragic, saying the door to freedom and a better life has been closed to them.
You can read the Persian version of this report here:
منابع در هلمند؛ طالبان یک زن را بهدلیل آموزش پنهانی به دختران بازداشت کردند
