WUNRN
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02
January 2009 82155\IRAQ: Warning over plight of Iraqi widows 82161\PAKISTAN: Militants announce ban on
girls’ education in Swat
PAKISTAN:
Militants Announce Ban on Girls’ Education in Swat
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An estimated 40,000 girls could be kept out of school |
SWAT, 1 January 2009 (IRIN) - “They
[Taliban] have spoken, and we are quite helpless," said Sikander
Ali, father of four girls, speaking to IRIN on the phone from Swat valley. He
was reacting to news that militants had ordered a ban on girls’ education from
15 January.
Swat valley (in the North West Frontier Province), which
has a population of 1.8 million and lies some 150km northeast of Peshawar, has
been a location of Islamist militancy for the past two years.
Ali, a government official, had heard the recent warning
by Shah Dauran, deputy leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Maulana
Fazalullah on a clandestine FM radio station.
“He said we must take our daughters out of all schools -
private or public - by 15 January 2009 at the latest. Failing this, he said the
schools will be bombed and violators would face death. He also said they will
throw acid into the faces of our daughters if we don’t comply, like their
counterparts did in Afghanistan some months back.”
“It is feared that the extremists will carry out their
threats,” said Ibrash Pasha, provincial coordinator of the Pakistan Coalition
for Education (PCE).
If this happens an estimated 40,000 girls will be kept
out of school, said Dawn
newspaper.
For now the schools are on winter vacation until
February.
However, following the TTP threats, the private school
Ali’s daughter goes to has re-opened and resumed classes for Grade 12 “so that
they can complete as much coursework as they can by 15 January, as they have to
sit for their board examination in April,” the father said.
Against Western education
“We have nothing against girls going to school,” said
Muslim Khan, a spokesman of the TTP, speaking to IRIN from an undisclosed
location in Swat.
“What we are saying is that the education being given to
our daughters in these schools is Western and not in keeping with the teachings
of Islam. It is only making us wayward,” said Khan, who studied till 12th grade
and confessed to having no Koranic teaching.
“Before they become engineers and teachers and doctors,
these young people must be trained for jihad,” said the 54-year-old TTP
spokesperson.
“We have never bombed schools and never threatened to
kill girls who defy our orders. We have also said that primary schools can
remain open as long as the girls and female teachers observe `purdah’ [cover
their bodies].”
“He is lying; it’s double-speak,” said Hazir Gul, who
runs Swat Participatory Council, a health NGO. “Their leaders have often given
interviews to the media celebrating the bombing of schools.”
“If they are allowing girls to study in primary schools,
this is a new development; it seems this is a U-turn,” said Ali.
Appeal
An appeal by the Private School Owner’s Association
appeared in local newspaper Shumaal on 29 December asking the TTP to reconsider
their ban.
It said the association had in the past always
cooperated with all the demands of the TTP regarding `purdah’. It had segregated
male and female students, changed boys uniforms from trousers and shirt to
`shalwar kameeze’, and made changes in the curriculum in keeping with Islamic
teachings.
“Convincing parents to send their children, especially
the girl-child, to school was already an uphill task. Years of hard work put
into mobilising rural communities to educate their girls has come to nought.
This fear will give them an excuse to keep their girls at home or make them
work in the fields or for cattle-rearing,” said the PCE’s Pasha.
Fear
Ali said the whole community is scared stiff: “They just
kill you on the slightest pretext, and make an example of you. No one dares
disobey them,” said Ali.
He said neither the police nor the army intervenes or
protects them; people feel completely isolated and unprotected.
In the past year education has been severely disrupted
in the valley. There have been unannounced curfews, schools have been blown up
or set on fire. The worst example was the attack on Sangota Public School in
October.
Herald, a monthly newsmagazine, reported in August 2008
that there were 566 girls’ schools in Swat, including four government higher
secondary schools, 22 high schools, 51 middle schools and 489 primary schools.
Of these, 131 have either been set alight or closed, rendering 17,200 girls
school-less.
In the past year over 150 schools (most of them girls’
schools), were destroyed - albeit when the pupils were absent.
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