Abstract
This chapter explores the right to education as a gender justice issue in Afghanistan, with a particular focus on Afghan women students’ experiences in accessing and participating in higher education. Afghan women students, living in a complex social context where their right to education remains contested, identify a number of priorities for action to improve their access to and participation in higher education. These include the need for quotas to increase women’s enrolment, their ongoing need for financial support, the need for human rights education throughout Afghanistan to promote greater acceptance of women’s right to an education and the need to address their security concerns, so that they can exercise their right to education and contribute to Afghan society without fear for their personal safety, either now or in the future.
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Notes
- 1.
It is important to note that these improvements are being measured from a very low base as girls were denied access to schooling under the Taliban.
- 2.
The authors would like to acknowledge and thank staff based at the Gawharshad Institute who undertook the interviews and translated them into English.
- 3.
It is not possible to accurately determine girls’ participation rate in schools in 2001 as the Taliban implemented a nation-wide ban on public education for women and girls in 1997. In 1998, Taliban restrictions limited the private home-based education of females to girls under eight, who could only learn the teachings of the Quran (PBS 2007).
- 4.
All interviewees whose comments are quoted have been allocated a pseudonym to protect confidentiality.
- 5.
See, for one example amongst many possible examples, World Education’s ‘Girls’ and Women’s Education’ site, which states ‘World Education believes that education for girls and women is the single most effective way to improve the lives of individual families as well as bring economic development to poor communities worldwide’. http://www.worlded.org/WEIInternet/international/expertise/display.cfm?tid=1004&id=756.
- 6.
For example, the Gawharshad Institute offers a 30 per cent discount on fees for female students to encourage their participation.
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Payne, A.M., Burridge, N., Rahmani, N. (2019). ‘An Education Without any Fear?’ Higher Education and Gender Justice in Afghanistan. In: Shackel, R., Fiske, L. (eds) Rethinking Transitional Gender Justice. Gender, Development and Social Change. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-77890-7_15
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