Friba Rezayee discusses women’s rights in Afghanistan for International Week
“It looks likely that online education and distant learning will be the only education opportunities available to female domestic students in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future," Rezayee says.
Harleen GillOn February 8, Friba Rezayee, a keynote speaker for International Week at the University of Alberta, discussed the right to education for women and girls after its ban by the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Events and activities during International Week this year related to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals. The keynote was held at the U of A, in which Rezayee discussed the history of women’s rights in Afghanistan, and the current ban on education for women and girls living in Afghanistan.
At the beginning of the keynote, Doug Weir, director of global learning at U of A International, acknowledged International Week as one of the U of A’s longest-standing traditions, this being its 37th year.
Rezayee first talked about how she was one of the first Afghan women to compete at the Olympics, bringing Afghanistan to the world stage when she competed in judo at the Summer Olympic Games in 2004. She said that when she was competing, at the time she did not imagine a future where young women from her country would be banned from sports altogether.
“I can’t believe that it has been almost 20 years, and everything has been halted, everything has been taken away from us.”
“Where do I begin? How did we get here? Why is the situation so bad in Afghanistan? Why do we have no gender equality in Afghanistan? … and why is being born a girl a crime in Afghanistan?” Rezayee asked.
Rezayee explained the historical efforts and political context behind the power struggle in the government in Kabul, and added that although women rejoined the workforce and schools after the collapse of the Taliban in 2001, “things were not perfect by other means.”
She added that women were free to do certain things, such as owning businesses, before the withdrawal of the United States and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces in August 2021.
“Significant cultural and family pressure barriers remained, but they didn’t risk flogging or imprisonment just for exercising their basic rights to participate in the economy,” Rezayee said.
Rezayee’s family fled from their home country with thousands of other Afghan families who feared for their lives due to crossfire before 2001.
“It was in 2001 when my family returned from Pakistan to Afghanistan hoping that there would be peace. We were promised freedom, democracy, gender equality, and life,” Rezayee said.
Rezayee turned to the present-day situation in Afghanistan towards the end of her speech, and explained how women and girls have been banned from all forms of education above grade six, working for businesses and international aid, and participating in sports.
“At the time of the evacuation in August 2021, I received hundreds of desperate messages from young women from Afghanistan trying to find any possible way to flee the country.”
Rezayee emphasized that the fault is with the Taliban and not the Islamic religion.
“I can tell you confidently from the perspective of Afghan Muslim women, the ideology of the Taliban is not actually Islam — they have twisted and perverted the ideology of a noble and gentle religion.”
She also talked about the risk of normalizing the Taliban’s control over the country.
“The international community and free nations of the world must ensure that the Taliban regime occupying the seat of power in Kabul is never recognized as a legitimate government,” Rezayee said.
Rezayee highlighted the work that her organization Women Leaders of Tomorrow (WLT) has done, including their online English language tutoring program. This program matches young women in Afghanistan with English language tutors based in North America.
“They spend several hours each week working with their tutors by video conferences over the internet with the goal of improving their capabilities to communicate with the outside world while effectively trapped inside their homes by the Taliban.”
Her closing statements included the outlook for the future of education for young girls and women in Afghanistan.
“It looks likely that online education and distant learning will be the only education opportunities available to female domestic students in Afghanistan for the foreseeable future.”
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