On a recent summer Friday, nearly a dozen students logged on for their online literature class. It was a group of mostly young women joining from different parts of Afghanistan, eagerly waiting for their turn to discuss a story they had read the week before. Before the Taliban’s return to power five years ago, the women were studying in high school or university, hoping education would give them a better future. Some had just obtained their undergraduate degrees. But their plans were put on hold when, like millions of other Afghan girls, they were barred from going to school. Once a week, the group gathers in a Google Meet room for a 90-minute class hosted by Toronto-based poet and educator Hazrat Wahriz. In this lesson attended by a reporter, they discussed a short story about a teenage boy’s journey fleeing the Taliban. The story’s author, Shams Erfan, joined the virtual class from Toronto and listened attentively throughout the session. Then he had a few words for the women. “I hope you continue ... writing, critiquing, reading, protesting, attending online classes,” he said in Persian. “These activities are a fight,” he continued, ”a fight against the Taliban ideology that is trying to remove you all.” Since 2021, the Taliban regime has been excluding women from every aspect of public life by imposing what international human rights groups call a system of “gender apartheid.” It has issued sweeping edicts to restrict women’s right to work, education and freedom of movement. In a report published last month, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization estimated that 2.4 million Afghan girls have been barred from secondary education, a number that could increase to four million by 2030. The Taliban also banned education for girls and women during its first rule in the late 1990s, before the regime was toppled in 2001 by a U.S-led international coalition in response to the 9/11 attacks. Canadian troops spent 13 years in the country as part of a NATO stabilization mission. More than 40,000 Canadian Armed Forces personnel were deployed to Afghanistan from 2001 to 2014. Girls and women returned to classrooms in 2001, and Canadian military and aid organizations invested heavily in women’s education and empowerment projects over the years. But the Taliban waged a bloody insurgency that paved their way back to power in 2021. Soon after seizing Kabul, the regime renewed its ban on women’s education. As the ban continues, virtual and underground schools operating from overseas — including the one founded by Wahriz in Toronto — have become a lifeline for many. In addition to online literature, photography and critical thinking courses, Wahriz’s non-profit, the Network of Community Schools for Girls in Afghanistan, runs a web of secret schools across the country. “Our first school was established in one of the faraway provinces of Afghanistan and since then, we gradually expanded our activities,” he said More than 1,600 girls are now being taught in his underground classrooms by female teachers turning their own homes into learning centres, he said. Under current rules, girls are only allowed to go to school up to Grade 6, meaning those attending secondary and higher education are violating the Taliban’s strict religious code. If caught, they could face severe punishment including physical violence and imprisonment. Despite those risks, Wahriz said, girls are showing up in classrooms every day to learn math, physics, chemistry and history in a fight against the “darkness.” “We are challenging that darkness just by our existence,” he said. Wahriz said funding for the network mostly comes from “kind-hearted” people he knows, including his Canadian friends and an organization based in the United Kingdom. The teachers are paid US$100 a month when funding is available, he said. “They are dedicated, committed enough not to expect every month to get paid, but are sure that whenever we find something, they get paid,” Wahriz said. He said even though his efforts are like a “small drop in the desert” given the magnitude of the crisis, he is optimistic because others are also doing the same. “Drop by drop, it becomes a sea,” he said, referring to a Persian proverb. A number of similar organizations in other countries are also working to bypass the Taliban ban on girls’ education. Women’s rights was a central issue during the 2020 peace talks between the Taliban and the former U.S.-supported Afghan government. Taliban negotiators repeatedly said they would no longer oppose women’s right to education and employment, but “within the framework of Islamic law,” a vague promise they immediately broke after seizing power. They have since issued more than 100 edicts targeting women, according to the United Nations. The group’s top leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and his chief justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani are now wanted by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity in their treatment of women and girls. The Canadian government said it has been backing efforts to expand education opportunities for all Afghans, including girls and women, for over two decades, and has provided more than $143 million to fund education and health-care programs in the past five years while avoiding any investments through the Taliban. “Canada strongly condemns the ongoing repression, systematic human rights abuses and erosion of fundamental freedoms under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, and is deeply concerned by the worsening humanitarian situation,” Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Brittany Fletcher said in a statement. For Murwarid Ziayee, the devastating impact of the ban on women’s education was a “painful” experience. She was in her last semester of law school when the Taliban took power in 1996 and closed the doors of Kabul University to female students. But she didn’t give up on her dreams, she said. Ziayee self-studied, learned English and computer skills, and even found a job at an underground non-profit that helped educate women at the time. She was able to complete her studies and obtain her degree after the Taliban were overthrown in 2001. Ziayee, now the senior director of Calgary-based Right to Learn in Afghanistan, said she is trying to do her part to help girls and women who have once again been banned from school. “It’s better to be in front seat and have the wheel and move forward and do what can be done,” she said in interview. The non-profit, formerly known as Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan, was founded in 1998 and has been working to empower women through education ever since. Ziayee said more than 700 students, mostly in Afghanistan, are attending the organization’s virtual school and 92 per cent of them are girls. The first cohort will graduate from high school next year, she said. “Once you provide these girls with the education ... the doors to many opportunities will open for them.” She said students from Grade 7 to Grade 9 study the former government’s curriculum before taking Canadian and internationally accredited courses during the three years of high school. Once the students graduate, they obtain internationally accepted diplomas so they can apply for post-secondary education abroad. Most of the funding comes from the federal government or individual Canadians, while people living in other countries also support some students. But even though many other organizations are involved, they cannot fulfil a state’s job to provide education, Ziayee said. “The gap is huge and that’s why we are obviously impatiently waiting and praying and advocating for the day that things change in Afghanistan,” Ziayee said. Until then, Ziayee said the group wants to see the international community step up to fund alternative ways to support more Afghan women and girls “who are left behind and waiting for opportunities to be enrolled.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 3, 2026. Sharif Hassan, The Canadian Press
