The Truth behind the US War
for “Girls Education” in Afghanistan!

“The fight against terrorism is also about the fight for the rights and dignity of women,” said Laura Bush, former first lady, in a November 2001 White House radio address, one month after the United States invaded.

Sixteen years past after this, but Afghanistan is still burning in the flames of war;civilian casualties are higher than ever and there is big talk about creating a new Afghan militia and more US troops for the region but little talk about books and pencils for the Afghan girls’ education.

Worldwide around 130 million girls do not attend school on a daily basis. The new reports of ONE show the 10 worst nations in the world for girls to get an education and that nine of these places are in Africa and the other one is Afghanistan. It is still the fourth-worst place in the world for girls’ education. Afghan government reported that 3.5 million children are out of school in Afghanistan, and 85 percent of them are girls and only 37 percent of adolescent girls are literate.

According to a report released earlier last month by Human Rights Watch, the major barriers that remain in the quest to get all girls into school are for example insecurity and violence stemming from both the escalating conflict and from general lawlessness, including attacks on education, military use of schools, abduction and kidnapping, sexual harassment, poverty and child labor, lack of schools in many areas, poor infrastructure and lack of supplies in schools, poor quality of instruction in schools, costs associated with education, lack of teachers, especially female teachers, administrative barriers including requirements for identification and transfer letters, and restrictions on when children can enroll, failure to institutionalize and make sustainable community-based education and corruption.

For every child killed or injured in the conflict, there are many more deprived of education. Rising insecurity discourages families from letting their children leave their homes, and families usually have less tolerance for sending girls to school in insecure conditions than boys. The school that might previously have been seen as within walking distance becomes off-limits when parents fear that going there has become more dangerous.

Because it has now become apparent that America has done nothing to really get the Afghan women on the road to education and that the invasion and promises are only about their own interests, Trump recently changed the strategy of both presidents before him which represented them as liberators of the afghan women, and thus he clearly said “We will no longer use American military might to construct democracies in faraway lands or try to rebuild other countries in our own image. Those days are now over. Instead, we will work with allies and partners to protect our shared interests.” With this statement Trump wants to make it clear that he will not bring more American victims for the interests of the Afghan population. As stated above in some examples, America has done nothing for the apparent promise it has made to afghan women, let alone the fact that it has done not a little bit for the well-being of the entire Afghan population. In summary, the educational status of Afghan women has not improved since the time of the Taliban, and the covert lie of the Americans has now come to light.

America claims that women were oppressed under the Shariah and now with the government changes they have to regain their identity back. It must be said that the Taliban government in no way implemented the Shariah as a complete law in its truthfulness. Moreover, the colonizers were never concerned with the liberation of the Afghan women and the extension of their educational status, but rather with their own colonial interests which they are happy to cover up. They used the appeal of the liberation and education only to gain confidence in order to approach their plans.

There is a single polity that has proven that it really respects all women's rights and also places a lot of value on their education. This government is the true Islamic government system, the Khilafah (Caliphate) by the method of the Prophethood. It is evident from numerous traditions that women enjoyed full rights during the time of the caliphate and were also very advanced in education. Under the Caliphate, women excelled in fields of study such as Fiqh, medicine, astronomy, mathematics, calligraphy, poetry, science and engineering. When we realize that there was a time when even a baker in the caliphate was a Mujtahid, that means that the rate of the uneducated and unknowing people was zero. In the Islamic state system, the woman has a high standing value because she shapes the future of society and generations, for this reason the state attaches a great importance to a woman maintaining and expanding her education because of her obligation.

Under the Shariah legislation, women do not need to be exposed, nor to fight for gender equality, nor to refuse motherhood, nor to take care of the financial income, nor to take care of her career, nor to be regarded as a sex object and nor to submit to the ideal of beauty in order to gain their rights and glory. Thus, we renounce the mendacious efforts of the Americans for the liberation of the Afghan woman, for such subjugated liberation is worse than the true slavery. We work zealously day after day for the rebuilding of the glorious Caliphate according to the method of Prophethood and strive for true liberation and true education status.

Written for the Central Media Office of Hizb ut Tahrir by
Amanah Abed