Updated: 120 days 15 hours ago
(April 26) -- For girls in Afghanistan, getting an education has always been difficult, if not impossible. But their struggle appears worse than ever recently as a series of poison gas attacks on girls' schools has sent at least 88 girls, some as young as 7, to the hospital.
The attacks in Kunduz province, in the north of the country, come amid heightened Taliban influence in the region, raising fears that ultra-conservative elements in society are becoming bolder in their efforts to exert influence over social behavior. But no military defeat of the Taliban is likely to banish even violent opposition to female education, which has deep cultural roots in a large part of the country.
"Attacks like these spike in unison with the strength of insurgents," says Jennifer Rowell, head of advocacy for CARE International in Kabul. "But we have to remember: not all insurgents are Taliban, and not all attackers are insurgents. It's likely that the attackers, whoever they were, had a problem with the idea of girls' education."
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The broader implications of these sorts of attacks underscore the challenges Afghanistan's girls face even if the Taliban are defeated.
The root of the problem lies not in any one militant group, but in a broader and persistent aversion to girls' education among some segments of Afghanistan's ethnic Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as the vast majority of the Taliban. Culturally, the Taliban's rigid interpretation of Islam, including the banning of education for girls, is part and parcel of Pashtun society.
"There is no way around it," says Bashir Khan, a businessman in Kabul who counts himself among the staunchly anti-Taliban Pashtuns. "In Pashtun culture, a woman's place is in the home. Even some of the most educated Pashtuns believe this. I'm willing to let my daughters go to school but only to a point, maybe until they are 11 or 12 years old. After that, why do they need an education? Their life will be in the home."
Pashtun men like Khan resent the emphasis Western nations have placed on girls' education, arguing that they are trying to destroy Pashtun culture. "It's an insult to our way of life," he says. "We will not allow it. We see what happens to women in the West; we see it on television, in their music videos and movies. We will never let our women become so corrupted."
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http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/whats-behind-the-poisoning-of-afghan-schoolgirls/19454566
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