by SORAYA SARHADDI NELSON
Afghan girls walk home from school in Kunduz province earlier this year. Despite progress in recent years, girls who want an education face threats from the Taliban and other extremists, and sometimes even their own families. IMAGE/Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty
n Afghanistan, girls are required by law to go to school. However, many of them never do.
Death threats, acid attacks and bombings by Taliban militants and other extremists lead many parents who support female education to keep their daughters at home.
Sometimes, it’s the families themselves who stand in the way. School officials in conservative communities say relatives are often more interested in marrying off their daughters or sisters than in helping them get an education.
But some girls, like 18-year-old Rahmaniya, are fighting back.
The 10th-grader in the southern city of Kandahar province says the moments she savors most in her life are those she spends learning.
Rahmaniya, whose last name is being withheld to protect her, says she didn’t dare go to school until her father passed away five years ago. He had vowed to disown her if she tried to get an education.
These days, the slight girl with big brown eyes dreams of going to college to study journalism.
NPR for more
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