Pencils and Bullets: Girls’ Education in Afghanistan

Five years ago, after the Taliban years, two Turkmen girls in Afghanistan were finally able to attend school.

Five years ago Al Jazeera travelled to Afghanistan to see one of the most dramatic social changes in Afghanistan in the previous decade – the vastly improved access to education, especially for girls.

After 2001, when the Taliban were toppled from power by US-backed Afghan forces, three million girls returned to school. Women had previously been banned from work and education under Taliban rule.

But the team found that periodic attacks against female students, their teachers and their school buildings, were continuing.

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