Afghan girls’ plea: Dear world, don’t forget our education

A group of teenage Afghan girls attending clandestine classes in Kabul have written a heartbreaking letter begging people not to forget their plight after a year of being banned from going to school.

“Dear world,” they wrote. “We are the only country on earth where girls can’t go to high school, just think about that.”

Maryam, 16, wrote: “I wanted to become president of my country, not for position, wealth, or fame but to build my country and make Kabul as beautiful as Paris. But now I can’t even go to school.”

She added: “Maybe you think somehow Afghan girls can live without dreams but among us are girls who want to be doctors, engineers, an astronaut ... and for the last 20 years that your soldiers were here in our country you have encouraged us to think that we could be.”

The letter, which included statements written by individual girls, was emailed to me by a teacher who runs a school secretly within her home, living in constant fear of being arrested.

 “We live in a land ruled by Taliban who believe women and girls belong only in the kitchen, must cover ourselves head to foot and cannot even go out without a male escort,” wrote the teacher, identified only as Parasto.

The girls’ plea comes as the first anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover approaches on August 15.

At the time, pledges were made that young girls would be able to continue their education. However, a ban on girls returning to class was imposed in September last year and it has not been reversed — forcing many children to study in secret.

The girls described crying themselves to sleep. “My greatest wish is that Taliban should give back the right to our girls to study and women to work,” wrote Sheikba, 15. “If we don’t go to school how can we go to university? I want to become a doctor. Taliban say women must be treated by women doctors but how can that be if we can’t be educated?”

Yalda, 12, who wants to be a teacher, wrote: “We are not scared of Taliban. Every girl in Afghanistan has big dreams in her heart but we need help to get out of this darkness into which we have been plunged.”

Sharifa, 13, wrote: “My family, like many, has such difficulties and sacrificed a lot to send us to the schools to just learn something and serve our country. But the Taliban destroyed it all.

“We Afghan girls are struggling a lot but we will never surrender because this generation of Afghanistan is powerful.”

Another message came from Homeira, 17, whose parents will not let her go to the clandestine schools because of the risk.

 “We never imagined a year ago our lives would fall apart and everything turn dark,” she wrote. “We are crying every day. But we still have phones and we read about England’s Lionesses on the football field and how proud you were. We had girls’ football teams too, you even sent people here to teach us, but now that is all gone, we could get in trouble even for watching it.

“We know you are all busy with your lives but are Afghan girls lesser people? Don’t we deserve a future too?

“Every day we follow the news, praying they will announce girls can go to school tomorrow. And nobody but the leader of the Taliban knows when that ‘tomorrow’ will come.”

The last message was from Nargis: “I had a dream to become the first Afghan woman to travel to space,” she wrote. “I wanted to become an astronaut, to see the moon and all the powers of Allah. I wanted to find ways of living on Mars and carry my people there far from war.”

She appealed for help from the international community.“We, the disappointed girls of Afghanistan, request that the Taliban, people of Afghanistan, Afghan men and women across the world, politicians, world leaders, the international community, and the world to make this happen again.

“We think this is a small wish and we don’t understand your silence. We know you spent a lot of money here and your own people were killed — are you just going to let that all be for nothing? You will not regret helping us — we promise you!”