Taliban sweep through Afghanistan, endangering ladies school

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Taliban sweep through Afghanistan, imperiling girls school

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LAGHMANI, Afghanistan — She must be standing high. Instead, she strolls in worry.

With American forces nearing their withdrawal and the Taliban on the march throughout Afghanistan, Lailuma Khaliqyar frets that the flourishing Um-Salma ladies school, where she works as principal, will be easy marks for the advancing Islamic militants.

“They shouldn’t abandon us at the moment that the Taliban is advancing,” Khaliqyar, 43, stated just recently. “When I walk to school, I take every step with immense fear and worry — I’m not sure I will return home safely.”

She fears it is just a matter of time up until close-by Charikar, the provincial capital of Parwan province — an area understood for its scrumptious grapes — is up to the Taliban. Once that occurs, it will be completion for Um-Salma and the hopes and imagine countless ladies.

They will close my school,” stated Khaliqyar, whose 3 children participate in the one-story structure safeguarded by an only, unarmed guard.

That U.S. forces silently abandoned the Bagram Airfield, when the center of America’s war versus the hard-line Taliban motion and a 20-minute drive from Um-Salma school, on July 2 simply highlighted her worries. And then on Monday the leader of U.S. and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan stepped down, marking a symbolic end of the U.S. military objective in Afghanistan.

‘She makes us proud’

When Khaliqyar took control of the school in her native Parwan almost 10 years back, the majority of the male instructors were overlooking their tasks in favor of tending their farms, she and others talked to by NBC News stated. They did not like her efforts to raise the requirements, and Khaliqyar needed to repel dangers and pressure to step down.

But she thrived, and went on to work with certified instructors and develop after-school activities such as choir and beach ball at the school called after among the Prophet Muhammad’s better halves.

Under Khaliqyar, registration has actually increased threefold to 1,600. Now, most of senior citizens participate in university — 36 out of 43 in the most current graduates have actually gone on to college.

Taliban fighters and villagers commemorate the peace offer signed in between the U.S. and the Taliban in Laghman Province in March 2020.Wali Sabawoon / NurPhoto through Getty Images file

Her achievements have actually been discovered and, in 2019, the administration of President Ashraf Ghani called her among the 100 finest school principals in Afghanistan.

“There was nothing in the school before Khaliqar came as a school principal,” stated Zuhal Seerat, a trainee at the school. “She brought in library, laboratory, sport venues, and much more.”

“She makes us proud — her perseverance makes her as a role model for me,” the 12th grader stated.

The education of ladies and ladies has actually been a main slab of the international effort to reconstruct Afghanistan considering that the Taliban were fallen in 2001 in the U.S.-led intrusion — a lot so that pictures of young groups of schoolgirls using white headscarves have actually ended up being a visual shorthand for development.

But after billions in help and 20 years of a U.S.-backed federal government in Kabul, an approximated 60 percent of the 3.7 million kids who are not in school in Afghanistan are ladies. Their low registration is described in part by an absence of female instructors, especially in backwoods, according to the U.N. kids’s firm.

Even these imperfect gains are now at danger.

‘Properly veiled’

Um-Salma, its instructors and trainees would probably fall nasty of the Taliban, which protected 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden as he outlined the attacks and declined to hand him over.

While in power, the Taliban imposed a rigorous variation of Islam that made ladies and ladies virtually unnoticeable in public life. Girls were disallowed from participating in school and ladies were not permitted to work outside the house or to appear in public without a male escort and an all-inclusive gown. Violators of these guidelines or orders might be flogged in public or performed.

Now, as U.S. forces exit and the Taliban take control of area at a rate that has actually even taken some militants by surprise, the group has actually made unclear promises to support ladies’s rights under Islamic law.

They state they support restricted education of ladies as long as it is according to their analysis of the Sharia, or Islamic law. But reports from recorded area suggest the group has actually not reformed its views much when it pertains to ladies and ladies.

And a Taliban leader in Ghazni province and another in Helmand province has actually informed NBC News that ladies would not have the ability to operate in politics or service under their guideline. Both leaders, who spoke on the condition of privacy since they were not licensed to speak with reproters, stated ladies would have the ability to teach “properly veiled” ladies approximately the age of 12 in spiritual schools. In addition, a medical track would be developed so ladies might train as nurses and physicians, they stated.

A student checks out a book in the library at Um-Salma.Ezzatullah Mehrdad / for NBC News

It isn’t just ladies and ladies who fret about the future.

Sayed Yaha, who assisted discovered Um-Salma and is its head instructor, states the group has actually apprehended him and eliminated 10 of his loved ones — all boys in their 20s.

“I worry about the Taliban so much that I stay up late at night until 2 a.m. watching the news, hoping there will be good news of the defeat of the Taliban,” Yaha, whose better half is an instructor, stated.

He included, “I only receive bad news.”

‘Cut you into pieces’

While she fears the Taliban, Khaliqyar’s very first opponents after being designated principal in 2012 originated from within her own neighborhood, which is bulk Tajik —an ethnic background that has actually long been at chances with the extremely Pashtun Taliban.

When she was designated, guys displaying weapons and riding on bikes confronted her on the street, Khaliqyar states. Then came text and confidential calls threatening to eliminate her.

“We want a male principal,” she stated one message read. “Do not resist, we will cut you into pieces.”

The dangers versus her are an indicator that the Taliban are not the only Afghans to have deeply conservative views of ladies’s location in society.

Khaliqyar states she reported occurrences of intimidation and death dangers to the cops, the intelligence firm and regional education authorities. A spokesperson for the cops might not validate that they had actually gotten the dangers.

While these guys attempted to drive her out of her task, there were likewise guys who supported her so she might stay primary.

Her hubby, Qasim, a previous soldier and bodyguard, departed from his task in the capital to escort her backward and forward to school throughout the early years.

Mohammad Sadiq Karimi was amongst a group of neighborhood senior citizens who went to a conference in a mosque and chose to bypass regional opposition to her consultation.

“We knew Khaliqyar was committed to educating our girls,” stated Karimi, 57, whose child research studies at Um-Salma. “We hope this school will change Parwan province. We did not have such a principal before.”

Boosted by this vote of self-confidence, Khaliqyar stated she was figured out to stand firm.

“I had to show people that I could run the school 100 times better than male teachers,” she stated.

Now, however, all these efforts might be fruitless.

“Peace is such a sweet dream,” she stated. “But if the Taliban returns and brings their dark rule, there will not be peace — we do not want to be in darkness.”

Ezzatullah Mehrdad reported from Afghanistan, Saphora Smith reported from London and Mushtaq Yusufzai reported from Pakistan.