Afghan women could lose one of their last paths to a higher education

"Laila" awoke in the middle of the night for a glass of water, checked her phone almost by accident, and saw an email that made her stomach drop. The US would stop funding the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF), one of the last places women can still study in the country.

Laila said she sat on her bed, staring, her thoughts racing through the past five years and everything she had endured just to get an education.

It had not been easy to find a way to study in Afghanistan after the Taliban outlawed women's education.

The American University campus was already taken over by the Taliban, but she could study secretly through the university's online program. But now that the university is losing its financing, she told DW she and her classmates fear it will shut down entirely. Her name has been changed for safety reasons.

In Afghanistan, girls study in secret to skirt Taliban ban

A hidden education for women in Afghanistan

Laila is in her mid-twenties. She studies political science and international studies and is one of around 1,000 enrolled students at the university, three-quarters of them women.

When the Taliban returned to power in August 2021, Laila was studying at another university in Kabul, with just two final exams remaining to finish her semester. Then, in December 2022, the Taliban announced the ban. Laila's degree was left unfinished. 

Laila secured a scholarship to AUAF and started over. "Not every girl got that opportunity," she said. 

Laila has told few people outside of her family about her online studies. On most days, she stays home for remote lectures, alongside classmates who use aliases and keep their cameras off for security. "I just know their voices," she said.

Laila speaks English with an American accent. She learned it as a child, watching cartoons. In her early twenties, she was learning even more about the world outside Afghanistan and studying foreign governments. 

Then on August 14, 2021, Laila's life changed. She and a friend sat in a restaurant in Kabul. They had just finished an exam and wanted to celebrate passing the test by ordering coffee and cake. Suddenly, a man came in, stopped at the entrance, and shouted "Allahu Akbar." He yelled that the mujahideen would always be victorious. 

That was the day the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, they soon forced women out of public life, banning them from many jobs and from attending school and university. 

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Laila said she recalls losing feeling in her hands or feet. She pulled money from her purse and slammed it on the table without checking the amount. "We all thought maybe this would be the last day that we are alive," she said.

Since then, some of Laila's peers have received threatening calls and messages. Now, whenever she leaves home, she worries that Taliban authorities might search her phone.

"What if they see my emails from my work, from my university?" she said.  "It's always in the back of my head that maybe tomorrow it's my turn. Maybe they will detain me." 

Even her home isn't safe. Laila said Taliban authorities have entered on several occasions to search their belongings. 

Yet, she has continued studying. For all its limitations and risks, the online program offered a chance to graduate.

A place for Afghanistan's 'future leaders'

With the US pulling out as the university's primary funder, Laila said she doubts whether she has the strength to start over. 

The American University of Afghanistan was always intended, largely, for women. Before the campus opened in 2006, former US first lady Laura Bush announced that the US had committed millions to support it.

Appearing in Kabul, Bush said the new university would teach "future leaders," particularly women. Women like Laila, who was four years old at the time.  

"These are more than just development projects," Bush said at the time. "They also signify the bond between the American and Afghan people. They are symbols of our shared hopes and dreams."

Patrick Fine was Afghanistan mission director at USAID, the now-defunct American development agency. Fine told DW that many at USAID considered the university idea risky. Critics thought training elites was a waste of money. 

But the Bush administration saw an opportunity to stabilize a budding democracy, Fine said.

By 2003, the Taliban had been driven from power. US President George W. Bush wanted to foster goodwill for the US-backed interim government that had replaced the Taliban. The university served that goal, and also offered other "facets of advantage" in educating women, training future politicians, and supporting the Afghan economy. 

"It really impacted the lives of thousands of Afghan youth," Fine said, referencing alumni. "The organization has managed to achieve that against incredible odds."

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Washington pulls the plug

The university continued with US support. But in Washington, that support started to come under question.

The US government suspected the university of mishandling money. In 2016, US inspectors opened an investigation into its finances. By 2018, investigators said they could not tell exactly how it was spending US aid money, because its accounting was so poor.

John Sopko, a former US federal inspector, oversaw that investigation. When DW contacted him for this story, he replied, "I was surprised they were still funding AUAF."

This year, after the funding was pulled, the US State Department Press Office told DW in an email that the move was made given the university's "history of repeated lack of accountability for millions of American taxpayer dollars."

Fine, the former USAID director, rejected the State Department's fraud explanation.

"Those are just smear tactics," he said. He conceded that past audits found the university struggling to keep up with USAID's extensive rules, "but they didn't find major fraud," he said. 

"It is still a useful investment, a worthy investment," Fine said, "and the reason for that is that it's one of the few organizations left that is reaching Afghan women."

The US isn't the university's only funder, but it has long covered most of its costs: nearly 90% as of 2018, according to a US report.

The US State Department told DW that the university is "free to identify other funders and partners, so the end of their receipt of American taxpayer money does not necessarily equate to an end to their operations."

But without the $25 million grant the State Department recently refused, the university's future is in doubt. 

What is next for women students in Afghanistan?

"I have lost all my motivation and hope," Laila said, adding that each time she prepares for a lecture, she wonders whether there will be another.  

Since she learned about the funding cut, she said she's barely left her room. Her curtains are usually closed, and she's lost her appetite. "Maybe I'm so disappointed that I can't even cry about it," she said. 

She said she was supposed to have graduated years ago. She was supposed to be making the world a better place. She was supposed to be in studying a master's degree abroad. Now, she's thinking, maybe she'll find a way in five or ten years. 

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