Opinion

In Afghanistan, women and girls are being erased

I was standing in the arrivals hall at Kigali International Airport in Rwanda this month, waiting for an Afghan girl and thinking about the days that brought the two of us here.

March 23rd marks one year since the Taliban decreed that Afghan girls don’t need to be educated past sixth grade. One year since they closed the doors of schools in the faces of an estimated 3 million girls, though of course these girls have been out of school much longer than that, really ever since the Taliban took power.