6. A Dark Day For Girls

Seventeen-year-old Maryam is standing next to her classmates in front of the school waiting for the gate to open. She excitedly speaks to her classmate Zahra.

“It took me so long to decide what to wear for today. I changed the outfit a million times.”

Zahra giggles and shakes her head, “We are wearing school uniforms, what is there to decide?”

“Well, what’s underneath the uniform was difficult to choose,” Maryam explains and points to her black dress.

“No one will know,” her friend insists.

But Maryam knows. The previous evening Maryam packed and repacked her school bag again and again, just to make sure that everything was in order. Today will be the first day for her and her classmates to go back to school. She hasn’t been in school for the last three years due to COVID-19 and the ongoing conflict in her country. But today is the day she will finally sit on a school bench again and place her freshly sharpened pencils next to her already thoroughly read schoolbooks.

Maryam’s mother laughed at her this morning, when she ran out of the house, because she could not wait any longer to go to school. She and Zahra have been waiting at the gate for an hour by now.

Finally, a teacher comes out to meet the girls. She walks slowly towards the gate and Maryam’s heart beats even faster. But instead of opening the gate the teacher calls out to them:

“Girls, you have to go back home. There is no school for you today.” With that, the teacher leaves and the gate remains closed.

Some girls start to protest loudly, others leave for their homes, but Maryam just stands there, gripping her schoolbooks closer to her body. The shock shaking her whole body, she still cannot believe that this is happening. That her hopes and dreams are yet again destroyed before her eyes. When the security forces come to scare the girls away from the gate, Zahra takes Maryam’s hand and tries to make her move. But Maryam is unable to move even an inch, she just stares at the gate, wishing it open by thoughts alone.

“Let’s go Maryam,” Zahra yells, as the security forces come closer. Her classmates start running then, pushing Zahra accidently away so that she loses Maryam’s hand in the crowd.

Then she is alone in-front of the school, she is ripped out of her trance because her mother calls her name. Maryam lifts her gaze and sees her running towards her, tears streaming down her face. That’s when Maryam realizes that this the reality. Schools are closed for her because she is a girl. She starts crying when her mother wraps her arms around her. Suffering the pain her daughter is feeling and raising her gaze to the sky and screams full of pain, “when can we mothers finally stop crying?”

It is the 23rd of March 2022 in Afghanistan. This day is a dark day for girls.