Nearly Five Years into Taliban Rule, Teachers Shoulder the Despair of a Generation of Girls
This article is co-published with Middle East Uncovered.
Each morning, Taiba* prepares her family’s living room in Kabul to teach 25 girls who are no longer allowed in school. For the past year, she has woken early, prayed, finished her chores, and set the room for class. A 26-year-old graduate of Kabul Polytechnic University, she began teaching at a public school before the Taliban barred girls from secondary education in 2021. After a brief stint at a private school, she was dismissed as restrictions tightened. For more than a year, she has taught from home—part of an underground network that has reached over 18,000 girls across Afghanistan since the bans took hold.
A few months ago, Taiba's already challenging routine was upended by a deeply troubling conversation with one of her students. "One of my students, a 14-year-old girl named Sahar, who was a bright girl and otherwise very lively, came to class that day with a frown on her face." Sensing a difference in her demeanor, Taiba asked Sahar to stay behind after everyone else left the class that day. She sat with her, and Sahar immediately burst into tears, jumping into her teacher’s arms and crying, “My father told me today that I am getting engaged tomorrow.”
Taiba can only do so much as a teacher. Providing solace to a soon-to-be-wed 14-year-old girl was not covered in her training. Still, Taiba decided to speak with Sahar’s father on the off chance she might be able to intervene. "In the evening, I went to their house, and I spoke with her family. Her parents were completely hopeless. They said there is nothing left to do for girls in Afghanistan anymore, and the economic stress on their household pressured them into marrying off Sahar."
The desperation of Sahar’s family is emblematic of broader challenges in the country. Since the Taliban gained control of Afghanistan for the second time in 2021, women have been systematically banned from all walks of life, including education. The marginalization of women and girls, combined with extreme poverty, is pushing thousands of families like Sahar’s to marry off their daughters—often to men decades older than the girls themselves. For many, it is a last resort to keep their households afloat. "Sahar told me that her suitor was a 30-year-old man living in Germany," said Taiba.
Sahar’s story is but one in a deeply disturbing pattern emerging in Afghanistan. Taiba’s work sits within a broader, collective effort to respond to it.
She is not the only teacher in this underground network of classrooms, which, aside from their own internal struggles, must listen to and comfort their students as they endure hardships unimaginable to most. Middle East Uncovered and More to Her Story spoke with Taiba and her colleagues, Arezo and Shukria, both 28, who are also part of the same network of underground schools. Together, they teach an average of 100 students per cohort per year. The majority of their students are young girls who recently graduated from 6th grade in public schools and are now unable to attend high school. Some even have participants much older than 18, including mothers who attend with their daughters.
Building on their shared experiences, these teachers and their students work together to keep the schools operational, all in secret. One hurdle they routinely face is limited access to technology. Only 6-15% of Afghan women have access to the internet and smartphones, meaning a significant number are unable to participate in any form of informal education. This is especially true for those from extremely impoverished families. This imbalance, paired with the Taliban's tightening, draconian laws, has placed extreme pressure on teachers to provide education to an otherwise neglected half of society.
Arezo, a graduate of Kabul University’s journalism school in the year the Taliban returned to power, spoke about the sense of total isolation facing Afghan girls: “I think we are simply alive in Afghanistan—that is it.”
After experiencing the collective trauma of regime change, Arezo, a skilled journalist, worked at various media agencies even after the Taliban returned. Soon her dreams of reporting and producing were shattered when, one day, a decree from the supreme leader arrived in her office ordering a ban on any coverage of women or women-related activities in Afghanistan. "I broke down in tears that day and could not stop crying. Not because my hours of reporting were wasted, but because I realized how lonely Afghan women have become now," said Arezo.
Similarly, Shukria’s story echoes the professional setbacks Afghan women face. Like Arezo and Taiba, Shukria was studying to become a software engineer. After graduating from high school, she enrolled in computer science at Kabul University, expecting to finish in four years. But the COVID-19 pandemic and a deadly attack on the university in 2020 stretched that timeline to six. "When the Taliban came, I was already in my sixth year of university. After graduation, nobody would employ women, and everyone started telling me that I had wasted my life studying for nothing," said Shukria, further adding, "I started teaching computer science at a private school, but then after three years I was dismissed from there as well."
When reflecting on the past few years, Arezo, Shukria, and Taiba quickly moved between the challenges they face together—running an underground network of informal education for girls—and the personal strains each of them carries.
Arezo said, "After I lost my job at the media company where I was reporting on women and their achievements in Afghanistan, I was at home for about a year, and I went into severe depression. I was at my lowest point in life with absolutely no idea where to go or what to do when I was introduced to the underground school network."
This experience mirrors Taiba’s, who had just finished her last year teaching mathematics at a private school when she was dismissed, but soon connected with the same network. Shukria says that initially her family showed some resentment toward the idea of opening an underground girls' school in their house. It took more than a month for them to decide whether to accept the offer. "I eventually convinced them by telling my brothers that this is what I want to do, and I will make sure that I fulfill my duty to the best of my ability without raising suspicion," said Shukria.
Beyond pressures at home, educators in the underground network face shrinking budgets, scarce materials, limited space, and the constant risk of being discovered by Taliban intelligence services. None of that compares to the psychological weight of teaching girls who feel they have no future. As Taiba put it, “In our society, a teacher is considered a spiritual father or mother.”
This burden makes trust between teacher and student essential. Taiba said, "The relationship between a teacher and student should reach the point where the student truly trusts their educator. Fortunately, my relationship with my students is intimate—they can freely share any kind of matter with me," while emphasizing her concerns about the growing mental health problems among her students. Arezo and Shukria nodded in agreement as she spoke during a virtual meeting with Middle East Uncovered.
Often, these teachers must listen not only to their students' stories but also to those of their mothers, who regularly accompany them to class for the sake of the community. Taiba shared one such story, recalling, "One of my students usually comes with her mom. Her mom didn’t show up to class for about a week, and I asked my student where she was. She would repeatedly tell me that her mother is sick." Taiba continued, "When her mom finally returned a week later, her arm was in a cast, her face was bruised, and her eyes were black. I asked her to stay with me after class, where she told me that her husband came home high on a substance one day and argued with her. After beating her nearly to death, she decided to end her life by taking pills." Taiba described how this mother, in her late 20s, attempted suicide and failed in front of her young children.
The increase in suicide rates among women in Afghanistan places an additional burden on the teachers. Taiba, Arezo, and Shukria have to stand before their classes, tell them not to lose hope—even though all three of them are slowly starting to lose it themselves. Arezo says, "But who will give hope to us? Who will talk to us? We are human too. Where can we express our emotions and pain?"
According to a report by the Guardian, “Suicide rates among women in Afghanistan have surged under Taliban rule, with reports suggesting one or two women may be dying by suicide daily due to extreme despair, forced marriages, and 'gender apartheid.' While official data is not released, reports indicate that females now make up over three-quarters of recorded suicide deaths.” The hopelessness that prevails over Afghan girls has pushed many to engage in self-harm.
According to Dr. Mohammad Nisar Jallah, founder and CEO of Ottawa-Kabul Global Education Center (OGEC), the mental health crisis in Afghanistan is dire. OGEC, founded in late 2024 with the mission of providing a comprehensive online educational solution for girls in Afghanistan, educates more than 20,000 students, according to its founder. 7,000 of those students alone are enrolled in their online medical program, delivered by professors from Kabul Medical University who are now living abroad. What sets OGEC apart from other organizations in online education is its robust psychosocial support program, run by trained, skilled professionals who work with hundreds of students up to four times a month to address their most pressing needs.
“Before we started the program, I would unfortunately hear on average 3 suicide attempts per day related to people in our network or their loved ones,” said Dr. Jallah, adding, “We are grateful that that number has been nearly zero in the past eight or nine months.” While demand exists, students who have participated in OGEC’s psychosocial support program have shown tremendous improvement in their mental well-being. “The mother of one of my students contacted me one day, telling me that her daughter was suicidal after she was banned from attending Kabul Medical University. She would stay awake at night guarding her daughter, fearing that she might attempt suicide. She expressed her gratitude for our programs that have kept her daughter so occupied and mentally relieved that thoughts of self-harm are not even on her mind now.”
The emotional cost of living without meaning or purpose is beyond most people’s comprehension. Those of us living abroad have the freedom to choose what to study, how to live, who to listen to, which career to pursue, and, most importantly, who to choose as our life partner. Children like Sahar are deprived of those rights and are traded like property or disposable objects.
Taiba said, “Sahar eventually got married to that 30-year-old man. He came to Kabul from Germany for the wedding, but soon everyone found out he was already married and had children. After a month of wedlock, Sahar was divorced and separated from her husband.”
Sahar returned to her father’s house as a divorced 14-year-old. “She was never the same again. She would come to class for a few weeks after her divorce, quieter and more somber. Eventually, she gave up on class altogether, and I could not persuade her to come back,” said Taiba.
These brave teachers, who themselves were girls a few short years ago with dreams of becoming software engineers, teachers, and journalists, have had every opportunity taken away from them. Just as they were about to embark on their life’s mission in a society where at least women had access to some, if not all, of the resources that were available to men, they were shunned and locked away. I could hear the pain in their voices as they spoke to me on the condition of anonymity. They present themselves as strong, independent, and fierce, and to a great extent, they truly are. But below all that courage, bravery, and sacrifice is just another vulnerable human being in desperate need of care and support.
And still, every morning, they open their doors and wait for the students to arrive. There are no guarantees—only the risk of being discovered, the weight of bearing witness to stories like Sahar’s, and the knowledge that many girls will never make it back to class. But for those who do, the room remains open.
*Names have been changed for safety reasons.