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From us, upon us
Alma Begum*authored this report for the Zan Times in Persian, and it was translated into English by Rustam Seerat.
Recently, I received a message from someone in Badghis: “A lady, who is our neighbor, comes to my class every day and harasses me and my students. She asks how much salary I receive and from where. She asks the students if they also get paid or not. When we don’t answer her questions, she declares, ‘I know millions of dollars are behind this course of yours. Big money!’”
This annoying woman — let’s call her Khanum Gul — and those like her have undermined their own generation of women in Afghanistan and now are picking up hatchets to strike at the roots of their own daughters. Though Khanum Gul never attended school, she wanted her daughter to study and become a teacher or a doctor. But instead, she married off her daughter, who had no opportunity to study.
Now, women like Khanum Gul are a danger to secret schools like the Daricha home school, currently active in 12 provinces of Afghanistan. These Daricha online community schools teach 20 girls each in the homes of teachers. Yet for the Taliban or women like Khanum Gul, it doesn’t matter whether the teaching of girls is a humanitarian effort or a project by foreigners.
