Life in Afghanistan on International Women's Day | Global development | guardian.co.uk

Life in Afghanistan on International Women's Day

Shaharzad Akbar is from Jawzjan, Afghanistan. She is the first Afghan woman to study at graduate level at Oxford University. She is in the second year of an MPhil in development studies on the Weidenfeld Scholarship and Leadership programme

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• guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 8 March 2011 00.01 GMT
• Article history

Shaharzad Akbar.

When I was six, the civil war became really intense and my family had to move from Kabul to northern Afghanistan. For several years we were going from one province to another just trying to find somewhere we would be safe. So education wasn't the first priority for most Afghan families at that time. But my parents would try and teach me and my siblings at home. When I was 11, it had become illegal for girls to go to school in Afghanistan under the Taliban regime and we fled to Pakistan so I could continue my studies.

I returned to Afghanistan in 2002, when I was 15, just as a Back to School campaign began. Since then, there has been a massive increase in the number of girls going to school. There are now 2.4 million Afghan girls enrolled in school, compared with just 5,000 in 2001. In my father's village, parents used to keep both boys and girls away from school, as they believed it was corrupting, but a generation later people in the same village are paying the salary of the local teacher, as they are desperate for their girls to be educated.  

But there are still a lot of obstacles that keep girls away from school and make it harder for them to get a good quality education. Poverty, early and forced marriage, and growing insecurity make it more difficult for girls to attend school. The lack of female teachers is also a problem. Many girls don't go to school because parents don't feel comfortable with them being taught by men or with boys. Many schools don't have buildings – so girls are forced to learn in tents or in the open air.

Never have so many young girls been able to go to school Afghanistan, but this success isn't guaranteed. There are so many deserving and talented girls in Afghanistan and I'd love for them to get a quality education like I've been lucky. But unless there is sustained support and attention, I'm not sure others will be.

via guardian.co.uk