A Taliban barrier to girls’ education

While most of the Pakistani religious seminaries continue to serve as a primary recruiting and training tool for a variety of Islamic terrorist groups, the fear of the Taliban has also forced most girls in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) into joining these seminaries, says the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) in its latest report.

Compiled by the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter of the HRCP for the year 2009-10, the report discussed the status of women rights and problems in the restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan.

The report said while militancy has led to closure of hundreds of primary and community schools in FATA, the number of educational institutions blown up in tribal areas by the Taliban was more than 450. However, rehabilitation or reconstruction of the damaged institutions had yet to be begun due to lack of access to the conflict-hit areas they were located in.

The HRCP report warned that religious extremism might increase further in the country as the Taliban had banned formal education for girls in the tribal areas.
The Taliban’s opposition to girls’ education; propaganda against it; issuance of threats, declaring girls’ education vulgar and un-Islamic are preventing parents from sending their daughters to schools.