Originally published 2021-09-28.
In September 2021, a month after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, the new authorities reopened secondary schools for boys and male teachers but said nothing about girls. In response, a number of Afghan schoolboys stayed at home in protest, and many posted messages online saying they would not return to class without their sisters and classmates. The gesture was small in scale, but it made the exclusion of girls impossible to ignore, and it became one of the most widely shared stories of resistance from that autumn.
This is what happened, what the boys said, and what became of girls' education in the years that followed.
The order that left girls out
Kabul fell to the Taliban in mid-August 2021. On Friday 17 September, the Taliban-run education ministry ordered middle and high schools, madrasas and other institutions to reopen for boys from the next day. The statement told male students and male teachers to attend. Girls in years seven to twelve, and most female teachers, were not mentioned.
Primary schools stayed open to girls up to about age twelve, and women could still attend university under strict rules, with classrooms segregated by sex or divided by a curtain. But for teenage girls, the doors simply stayed shut while their brothers went back.
Boys who refused to go back
Many boys in Kabul and other cities chose to skip lessons. Some spoke to journalists, while others shared their reasons on social media using phrases such as "not without our sisters" and the hashtag #WithoutMySisterIwillNotGoToSchool, which was promoted by the activist Masih Alinejad.
Rohullah, an 18-year-old student at a Kabul boys' school, told the Wall Street Journal: "I will not show up at school until girls' schools are open too." Other students explained that women make up half of society and that excluding them showed the movement had not really changed since the 1990s.
Teachers joined in. A high-school teacher, Qudsia Qanbary, wrote on Facebook urging boys and male colleagues to stay home unless girls could attend as well. A Kabul principal told Reuters that girls' education was about fixing a whole generation.
It is worth being careful about scale. These were individual and local acts of protest, many of them shared online, not a nationwide strike with reliable numbers. Their importance lies in what they showed: that many young Afghan men saw their sisters' education as their own concern.
Afghan women answered with their own images
At the same time, Afghan women abroad started a separate online campaign about how the Taliban were portraying women. Dr Bahar Jalali, a historian who had taught at the American University of Afghanistan, posted a photo of herself in a brightly coloured traditional Afghan dress. She contrasted it with images of women covered head to toe in black at a pro-Taliban gathering, arguing that such dress was foreign to Afghan tradition.
No woman has ever dressed like this in the history of Afghanistan. This is utterly foreign and alien to Afghan culture. I posted my pic in the traditional Afghan dress to inform, educate, and dispel the misinformation that is being propagated by Taliban. https://t.co/jrp772jIKu
— Dr. Bahar Jalali (@RoxanaBahar1) September 12, 2021
Her post inspired hundreds of women to share pictures of embroidered, colourful clothing from different regions of the country under hashtags such as #DoNotTouchMyClothes and #AfghanistanCulture.
The background: the first Taliban era
During its first period in power, from 1996 to 2001, the Taliban barred girls from school and most women from work, citing its strict interpretation of Islamic law. After the US-led intervention in 2001, millions of girls enrolled in school for the first time, and women returned to universities, parliament, media and business.
In 2021 Taliban leaders promised a more moderate approach. Spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said women would have rights to education, health and work within Sharia. Many Afghans were sceptical, particularly as the Ministry of Women's Affairs was replaced and women outside health and education were told to stay home from work.
Analysts also noted that the argument for banning girls on religious grounds was weak. Kate Clark of the Afghanistan Analysts Network pointed out that because Islam places such high value on learning, the Taliban had previously avoided an explicit religious ban and instead promised to reopen girls' schools once security improved, which never happened.
What happened next
The boys' protest did not change the policy. In March 2022, at the start of the Afghan new year, the Taliban announced that all students could return. Thousands of girls arrived at their schools in uniform, only to be sent home within hours. The education ministry then said that "schools for women from the sixth grade above are closed until further notice", as NPR reported.
UN Secretary-General António Guterres urged the authorities to open schools for all students without delay, and Human Rights Watch called the reversal devastating. Reports also pointed to divisions inside the Taliban, with some officials privately saying they saw no religious basis for the ban.
Restrictions later widened. In December 2022 the Taliban suspended university education for women as well, and secondary schooling for girls remained closed for years afterwards, making Afghanistan the only country in the world to bar girls from education beyond primary level.
Aid, pressure and the cost to families
Western governments linked the restart of development aid to girls' return to school and to women's right to work. Critics warned that cutting aid in a country facing economic collapse and hunger could hurt the very women and children it aimed to protect. Humanitarian groups have tried to separate emergency food and health support from political conditions.
Inside the country, families have looked for alternatives: secret home schools, online classes and religious schools that still admit girls. These options reach only a fraction of those who lost access, and they carry risks for teachers and students alike.
Why the boys' stand still matters
Solidarity from those who are not directly affected can change how a policy is seen. When brothers and classmates refuse a privilege that others are denied, the exclusion becomes visible to everyone, including the people imposing it. The boys of September 2021 could not reopen the schools, but they put on record that many Afghans, including young men, believed girls belonged in the classroom.
The most important voices remain those of Afghan girls and women themselves. Organisations such as UNICEF, UNESCO and Afghan-led education groups continue to document the effects of the ban and support learning wherever they can.
Sources: Yahoo News: Afghan boys skip school to show solidarity with girls (September 2021); NPR, 23 March 2022; original coverage via Upworthy; tweet: Dr Bahar Jalali on X.
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