“I Thought the Taliban Had Changed”: Afghan Girls Are Banned After School Once More

Adeeba Haidari was one of hundreds of Afghan girls who returned to their high schools in Kabul. Adeeba feels as though she is in prison just days after the Taliban made a terrible U-turn on allowing Afghan females to return to school. Women have been subjected to a litany of restrictions by the Taliban, virtually excluding them from numerous government professions. Thousands of ecstatic girls went back to secondary schools that reopened throughout the nation on Wednesday, for the first time since the Taliban took power in August. Across town, Nargis Jafri, a member of the minority Shiite Hazara group, claimed educated women are a threat to the Taliban.

Hamida, her mother, was forced to quit school when she was just ten years old during the Taliban’s first rule. Stories from what she thought was a long time ago are coming back into her consciousness.