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Unbowed by Attack, Afghan Girls Return to School

School thrives despite horrific assault

By Jason Farago,  Newser Staff

Posted Jan 14, 2009 7:05 AM CST
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(Newser) – Last November in Kandahar, the southern Afghan city in the grip of the Taliban, 15 students and teachers were sprayed with acid on their way to a girls' school. The attack was the culmination of a Taliban-supported campaign to keep women from education, but the girls and their teachers have returned—to a bustling school of 1,300 students, reports Dexter Filkins in the New York Times.

The Japanese-built girls' school in Kandahar "appears to have set off something of a social revolution," Filkins writes. While under Taliban rule Afghan girls were forbidden from attending school, now education for women is so popular that students have to gather in UNICEF tents outside the building. "If you don’t send your daughters to school, then the enemy wins," says the school's principal.

Shamsia Husseini, 17, lies on a bed at a local hospital in Kabul after an acid attack on her in November. She and other students have returned to school.
Shamsia Husseini, 17, lies on a bed at a local hospital in Kabul after an acid attack on her in November. She and other students have returned to school.   (AP Photo/Rafiq Maqbool)
Shamsia, left, an Afghan schoolgirl, recovers in a hospital after two men on a motorbike threw acid on her in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in November. She has returned to school.
Shamsia, left, an Afghan schoolgirl, recovers in a hospital after two men on a motorbike threw acid on her in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in November. She has returned to school.   (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
Afghan police officers stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in the Dand district of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, in November.
Afghan police officers stand guard at the site of a suicide attack in the Dand district of Kandahar province south of Kabul, Afghanistan, in November.   (AP Photo/Allauddin Khan)
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My parents told me to keep coming to school even if I am killed. The people who did this to me don’t want women to be educated. They want us to be stupid things. - Shamsia Husseini, 17, who was attacked with acid on her way to school

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COMMENTS
Showing 2 of 2 comments
riffran
Jan 15, 2009 4:57 AM CST
now wait a minute, those girls deserved that, imagine the nerve of them trying to climb out of ignorance and brutal suppresion, whats this world coming to?....all sarcasm aside, BRAVO BRAVO to those poor children, I hope they become leaders and doctors and such, and stomp out that despicable mentality, inspired by the warped teachings of the so called islamic clerics
Guest
Jan 13, 2009 8:20 PM CST
Ahh, Islam...the religion of peace!

The dangerous road to school in Afghanistan
Gazette (Montreal )

Why education is under attack
Washington Post

 
Afghanistan • Taliban • school • Kandahar • girls • students • acid

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