Afghan Girls: The Fight for Education

Zulekhabe Yousuf Khan – Education Rights Advocate

"Education is not merely a privilege—it is the fundamental right of every girl in Afghanistan. When I look at my own journey from a student to an advocate, I see how education transforms not just individuals, but families and communities. What we are witnessing today is not just the closing of school doors, but the systematic attempt to close minds and suppress potential."

Each time I speak with mothers who taught their daughters to read by candlelight, or young women who share tattered textbooks in secret gatherings, I am reminded that the hunger for knowledge cannot be decreed away. One former university student told me: "They can stop us from entering classrooms, but they cannot stop us from thinking, learning, and dreaming of a different future."

Jawad Abdiani – Founder of Danishtoon & Human Rights Activist

"In Afghanistan today, we are witnessing the systematic erasure of women's educational rights—a violation that will have consequences for generations to come. When girls are denied education, entire communities suffer. When women are pushed out of classrooms, society loses doctors, engineers, teachers, and leaders who could help rebuild a nation devastated by decades of conflict."

Every day, we receive messages from Afghan girls who study in secret, risking punishment to keep their minds alive. Their determination in the face of overwhelming obstacles is both heartbreaking and inspiring. One young woman wrote to us: "I study English from old textbooks in my bedroom, hoping someday I can return to school. I refuse to give up."

The international community must not grow accustomed to this injustice or accept it as the new normal. The silencing of Afghan girls' voices is not just an Afghan issue—it is a global human rights crisis that demands our attention and action.

Maiwand – University Lecturer & Human Rights Activist

Maiwand is a university lecturer, social and human rights activist. He strongly opposed the Taliban's decision to ban universities, resigning from his position as a form of protest. In addition, he taught girls in a hidden school. Currently, he is working on 'Danishtoon,' an online university specifically designed for Afghan girls.

He was involved in leading national summits and advocacy programs on women empowerment, organizing national campaigns such as collecting stationery for needy people and helping displaced people due to war, coaching and training Afghan women to become business leaders, and advocacy for the protection of minorities' rights in Afghanistan.

Anonymous – Afghan Woman from Kabul

"Every morning, I wake up in a city that no longer recognizes me as a full person. The Kabul I knew—where I once walked to university with books in my arms and dreams in my heart—has vanished. Now, I move through shadows, my existence reduced, my voice muted. But even in silence, I am keeping count of all that has been taken from us."

Life in Kabul today demands a painful calculation with every step outside my door: how to dress, how to walk, how to speak—if I am permitted to speak at all. Yet behind closed doors, we women still gather. "They have taken our classrooms, but they cannot take the knowledge we already possess or our determination to share it," my former classmate whispered during our last secret study group.

I cannot show my face or share my name—that is the reality of our struggle now. But I want the world to know that we have not disappeared. We are still here, still learning, still teaching each other, still finding ways to resist. Our invisibility is not our choice, but neither is it our surrender.