In Afghanistan, underground girls’ schools defy Taliban

In Spina, a mountain village in eastern Afghanistan, girls attend an informal school in a family’s living room, defying a Taliban edict. The country has many areas where formal efforts to educate women and girls have crumbled in the face of threats from insurgents.

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A girl reads aloud in an informal school in Spina, Afghanistan. Less than half the class has textbooks that have made their way from Kabul.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

Students’ shoes left outside an informal girls’ school in Spina, Afghanistan, this month. The Taliban closed a U.S.-funded girls’ school in 2007.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

A girl reads aloud in an informal girls’ school in Spina this month. Because of threats, several schools in eastern Afghanistan have been closed during the past few months alone.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

A man teaches students in an informal girls' school in Spina, Afghanistan. Two brothers, among the few literate men in this village, began quietly teaching math, reading and writing to their female relatives in a living room, defying a Taliban edict.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

Parwana, 11, attends an informal girls’ school in Spina, Afghanistan. About 2 million Afghan girls do not attend school.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

U.S. Army Col. Curtis Taylor speaks to girls at an informal school in Spina this month.The United States and its allies have spent millions of dollars on female education during the past decade.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

A U.S.-funded girls’ school sits empty in Spina, Afghanistan. The Taliban warned residents in 2007 that their daughters could not attend the school, leaving some children to attend an informal school in a family’s living room.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

A girl walks to an informal girls’ school in Spina, Afghanistan, this month. After word spread about the school, teenagers as well as young girls began to attend classes, a rare development in a region where females are expected to remain home upon reaching adolescence.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

Children carry their chairs to a class in an open area in Mazar-e Sharif, 200 miles northwest of Kabul, in April. At the start of the school year in March, Afghan Education Minister Ghulam Farooq Wardak said there were 8.4 million children going to school in the country, 39 percent of them girls.

Qais Usyan / AFP/Getty Images

A girl sits outside her home as U.S. soldiers pass by on a rare patrol in Spina, Afghanistan, in April. Insurgents are active now in this area of Paktika province.

Kevin Sieff / The Washington Post

Teachers and students listen to an address by Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a ceremony marking the start of the new school year at Amani High School in Kabul in March. Karzai called on Taliban insurgents to allow children to seek education.

Massoud Hossaini / AFP/Getty Images

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