WOMEN’S rights activists pledged to launch a wave of protests across Afghanistan if the Taliban government fails to reopen girls’ secondary schools within a week.

Thousands of secondary schoolgirls flocked to classes on Wednesday, after the hard-line Islamists reopened their institutions for the first time since seizing power last August.

But officials ordered the schools shut again just hours into the day, triggering international outrage.

“We call on the leaders of the Islamic Emirate to open girls’ schools within one week,” said activist Halima Nasari, in a statement issued by four women’s rights groups at a press conference in Kabul.

“If the schools remain closed even after one week, we will open them ourselves and stage demonstrations throughout the country until our demands are met.”

The Taliban should be building more schools for girls in remote rural areas rather than shutting existing facilities, said the statement, which comes after several high-profile women’s activists in the country were detained in recent months.

“The people can no longer tolerate such oppression. We do not accept any excuse from the authorities.”

Yesterday, about two dozen schoolgirls and women staged a protest demanding the reopening of the schools in Kabul.

The Education Ministry has not given a clear reason for its policy reversal, but senior Taliban leader Suhail Shaheel said some “practical issues” are to be resolved before reopening the schools.

Since storming back to power, the Taliban has rolled back two decades of gains made by women in the country, who have been barred from travelling alone, squeezed out of many government jobs and ordered to dress according to a strict interpretation of the Quran.

The Taliban had promised a softer version of the harsh Islamist rule that characterised their first stint in power from 1996 to 2001. But many restrictions are still imposed—if not at the national level, then implemented locally at the whim of regional officials.

Some Afghan women initially pushed back against the curbs, holding small protests where they demanded the right to education and work.

But the Taliban rounded up the ringleaders, holding them incommunicado while denying that they had been detained.

Since their release, most have gone silent. – AFP, March 27, 2022.