An Italian aid worker says daughters of Taliban members were among the students attending a secret school established for Afghan women after Taliban authorities barred women and girls from secondary and higher education.
Susanna Fioretti, deputy vice president of the Italian nonprofit NOVE Caring Humans, told Italy’s Corriere della Sera that the organization established the clandestine school after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
Fioretti said classes were held in a room containing sewing machines, allowing organizers to disguise the school as a women’s workshop if Taliban authorities carried out an inspection.
She said books, paper and pens could be hidden and replaced with sewing materials if necessary.
After about two years, Fioretti said, organizers made an unexpected discovery: Some of the students were daughters of Taliban members.
“There were daughters of Taliban members,” Fioretti told Corriere della Sera.
She said the girls’ parents wanted their daughters to receive an education despite restrictions imposed by Taliban authorities.
Fioretti said not everyone associated with the Taliban holds the same views on girls’ education, and that some people connected to the authorities privately oppose restrictions they consider wrong.
Her account could not be independently verified.
Underground schools have continued to operate across Afghanistan despite Taliban restrictions on female education. Some have functioned with the knowledge or informal tolerance of local Taliban officials, while others have faced closure, according to international reports.
Fioretti said operating the school carried significant risks because it could have been reported to Taliban morality authorities.
Taliban authorities have barred girls from attending school beyond sixth grade and have prohibited women from attending universities, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where girls and women are systematically excluded from secondary and higher education.
The restrictions have forced some Afghan girls and women to turn to clandestine classrooms and online education to continue their studies.
Fioretti, who has worked on humanitarian and development projects in Afghanistan, has also negotiated with Taliban officials over programs aimed at supporting Afghan women.
Earlier this month, she presented NOVE Caring Humans’ Women Business Prize Afghanistan at an event hosted by the Italian Embassy in Kabul. The initiative seeks to support Afghan women entrepreneurs and improve their access to credit and international markets.
Fioretti told Corriere della Sera that negotiations and compromise had allowed the organization to continue some programs for women under Taliban rule, despite extensive restrictions on women’s education, employment and public life.
Taliban authorities have repeatedly defended their policies as consistent with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture, while international organizations have called for the restrictions on women and girls to be lifted.
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