Afghanistan’s Only All-Girls Boarding School Fears the Return of the Taliban

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Photograph by Jay Farbman / Alamy

Since the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan began, Taliban forces have recaptured more than a quarter of the country’s districts. Shabana Basij-Rasikh is the co-founder of the country’s only all-girls boarding school, and she is anxiously waiting to see if the Taliban—which brutally opposes the education of girls and women—will make inroads in Kabul. At SOLA, the School of Leadership Afghanistan, students are free from the threats and violence that are commonly suffered in villages, and also from the expectations of housework that interfere with studying. Basij-Rasikh told the New Yorker staff writer Sue Halpern how she was educated secretly, during the Taliban’s rule, and about her belief that Kabul will not fall to the resurgent group: “I was speaking with a young woman, and she said, ‘Yes, sure, the Taliban will kill more of us. The Taliban will kill a lot more of us. But they will never, ever rule over us.’ ”