In backroom ‘sewing’ classes, Afghan women stitch together an education in secret
Christian Science Monitor · C · trust 44/100
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It has been five years since the Taliban outlawed women’s education beyond sixth grade, forcing English and math lessons underground.
Across Afghanistan, in basements and storefronts promising sewing classes, a hidden rebellion is taking place.
Five years after the Taliban swept back into power, the ban on girls’ education past sixth grade remains perhaps the movement’s most visible act of repression. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are legally prohibited from continuing their education beyond primary school.
Yet in secret, women are educating themselves, their schoolbooks hidden inside sewing bags as they listen closely for an unexpected knock at the door. The backroom courses in English, math, or nursing are no substitute for those shut down by the government. Women remember with heartache the day those closures took effect, but they have not yielded.
In Afghanistan, courageous teachers and students are finding ways to educate girls right under the Taliban’s nose. These underground networks reflect Afghans’ hopes for a better future.
Some 40% of Afghan women “still imagine a future where change and equality are possible,” according to a 2025 survey by UN Women . The underground education networks across the country are a testament to that hope.
At 23 years old, Arghawan says she should be finishing medical school right now. (As with all women interviewed for this article, her name has been changed and her location withheld to protect her from retaliation.) Instead, she’s taking clandestine classes in the basement of a vocational center.
It’s a dark, sparse, and bitterly cold space once winter sets in, lit by weak solar lamps whenever the power cuts out. If someone spots the morality police approaching, English lessons are wiped from the whiteboard in seconds, and notebooks are replaced with needlework.
But when she’s there, the memory of the life she once had – and she hopes to have once again – flickers into view.
“I feel as though I am back in my school classroom,” she says. “I feel as though I am alive again.”
Ebrahim Noroozi/AP/File An Afghan girl writes on a board as girls attend class on the first day of the school year, in Kabul, March 25, 2023. High school remained closed for girls for the second year after the Taliban returned to power in 2021. ‘Like a funeral’ Polls are clear. Afghans overwhelmingly want to educate their girls and young women. The UN Women report found that 92% of respondents in a national door-to-door survey said it was “‘important’ for girls to continue their schooling.” Support was no lower than 87% among both men and women, in both rural and urban areas.
The Taliban banned women from secondary education in 2021 and college education in 2022. Those moments remain seared into the collective consciousness of women nationwide.
Arghawan was 17 then, in the 11th grade, with plans to become a doctor or a prosecutor. She remembers the morning being sunny and the market a little quieter than normal. She had no idea the walk to school that day would be her last.
Taliban vehicles were already blocking the gate when she arrived. When she asked why, a man who called himself a qari – a Quran reciter – told her and her classmates they were “stupid and irrational,” and asked whether girls like them were supposed to be the ones who built the nation. Once through the door, she says, she found her classmates and gripped their hands tightly. It felt as if letting go might mean losing each other forever.
“Unfortunately, our school has been closed,” a teacher said, turning to the blackboard so the girls wouldn’t see her wipe her face.
“It was truly like a funeral,” says Arghawan.
The Taliban ordered everyone out. Students who resisted were beaten back with sticks.
At another school nearby, girls were lined up in the schoolyard and told that anyone above sixth grade could no longer come to class. Some teachers tried to record the moment on their cellphones, but within the hour, the Ministry of Education called the principal and warned that anyone caught filming would be detained. The teachers deleted their videos in front of their students and the Taliban fighters standing at the gate.
“We kissed the girls on their faces and sent them home,” says Fazilah, a former math teacher and administrator at the school, “all of them in tears.”
Five years later, however, Fazilah is still teaching as best she can. Eleven girls, all former students, now come to her basement to learn English, math, chemistry, and physics. If anyone asks, they are there to learn sewing.
Fazilah charges next to nothing, just enough to cover supplies. “I love teaching,” she says. “I believe teaching girls is my right.”
Ebrahim Noroozi/AP/File Afghan boys attend class on the first day of the school year, in Kabul, March 25, 2023. She knows the risks. An earlier class she ran – better equipped and teaching English and computer skills more openly – lasted four months before the Taliban found it. She was interrogated and warned that a second offense meant prison. She also knows the threat is real. A colleague was once arrested and released only after community elders intervened, forced to sign a pledge never to teach again.
Rana had a year of engineering…
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