“My grandmother hid poetry in bread dough during the 1990s; now we hide STEM lessons in smartphone memory cards.”
My name is Rabia*, and I’m a 17-year-old girl from Afghanistan. Four years ago, I was dreaming of becoming an independent girl, until the day the Taliban shut my school gates forever. But what they didn’t know? Afghan girls don’t give up, we adapt.
This is the story of thousands of Afghan girls fighting for their right to learn — in underground schools, on hidden tablets and through the pages of books they risk everything to read.
A morning in Kabul in the summer of 2021: the air is filled with the chatter of girls carrying colourful backpacks to school. I’m one of them, with my science textbook clutched tightly to my chest. Suddenly, news strikes like lightning: the Taliban are here. Girls’ schools are closed.
The day the Taliban returned, our notebooks became dangerous contraband. In my Kabul neighbourhood, mothers hurriedly painted over school logos on backpacks, while fathers burned textbooks in backyard fires, anything to protect their daughters from punishment. But where there’s oppression, innovation blooms. Across Afghanistan, girls transformed their home courtyards into secret classrooms, using broken bits of chalk to scribble equations on weathered walls. These fading white streaks became our rebellion.
When the Taliban banned girls’ education beyond sixth grade in September 2021, they thought they’d won. In my class of 30 girls, 17 disappeared into early marriages by winter. One of my classmates became a bride at 16. “At least I’m safe now,” she whispered when we last met.
“The Taliban never considered how Afghan women have practiced resistance for generations.”
But for every girl forced into marriage, another found ways to resist. We created a rotating “study house”, moving between homes like academic nomads. The Taliban never considered how Afghan women have practiced resistance for generations. My grandmother hid poetry in bread dough during the 1990s; now we hide STEM lessons in smartphone memory cards. When they took our schools, we made classrooms everywhere: in courtyards and basement corners.
What the world must understand is this: when you see photos of our chalk-marked walls, you’re not seeing surrender. Those smudged equations are battle scars. Every girl bent over a secret notebook at 3 a.m. is planting seeds for an Afghanistan they may never see, but one that will blossom because they dared to write its first draft on a crumbling courtyard wall.
Our education is continuous, just not in ways the Taliban can recognise. They banned schools, but they’ll never ban the mind’s hunger to learn. These walls may confine our bodies, but they’ll never contain our dreams. When the Taliban returned, they thought they could bury us under the weight of their laws. But they forgot: Afghan girls are seeds. They can bury us, but we will grow through cracks in concrete, through the smallest openings of light. I have seen girls turn their homes into classrooms, turn whispers into protests. I have seen mothers sell their wedding jewellery to buy pencils. I have seen teachers risk everything to keep a single textbook in a girl’s hands.
“Online learning didn’t just teach me, it showed me I am not alone.”
Two years of staring at my school’s empty walls ended when a friend whispered: “Look online.” There, glowing on my cracked screen were virtual classrooms. That first lesson, a teacher’s pixelated smile pierced the darkness: “Welcome back, students.” That day I became a student again. Our LEARN teachers appear like shadows at dusk, and they are really good and kind teachers.
Teacher Salma* transforms English grammar into secret codes for freedom. Teacher Nava* proves physics equations can be weapons of resistance. Teacher Mashal* shows how biology blooms even in darkness. My classmates and I move like shadows, connected by glowing screens and shared determination. Some study between household chores, others during late night hours when the world sleeps. When internet connections fail, we are helping each other.
This small phone is the key to a world the Taliban tried to take from us. Every time I turn it on, I prove to myself that no one can ever remove the desire to learn from an Afghan girl’s heart. Online learning didn’t just teach me, it showed me I am not alone. Girls across Afghanistan are fighting just like me.
“They may have taken our schools, but they will never take our minds.”
This is not tragedy. This is a revolution. To the world, I say: do not look away. Do not pity us, join us. Amplify our voices, fight for our right to learn, to lead, to exist loudly in a world that tries to shrink us. Afghan girls do not need saviours; we need allies. We are not victims. We are warriors with ink-stained fingers and unbroken spirits.
They may have taken our schools, but they will never take our minds. They may silence our voices today, but history will echo with our names tomorrow.
Our silence doesn’t mean surrender; we are fighting in silence.