‘I know I will be killed’: Afghan educator vows to keep teaching girls and boys despite Taliban victory

Allowing women and girls to continue enjoying rights to education and work is the only way Afghanistan can recover after 20 years of war, Matiuallah Wesa tells Arpan Rai

29-year-old Matiullah Wesa, an education activist, has been fighting for the rights of children to attend school since 2009. (Internal)

Matiullah Wesa was barely 14 when armed militants knocked at his door one afternoon, looking for his father. They came bearing a message: “Leave your house and the village within a week or else this entire family will be shot dead.”

The threat was aimed at Wesa’s father and grandfather, both of whom had been vocal in espousing the cause of educating children in Afghanistan, especially for girls.

This was 2004, relatively soon after a US-led coalition toppled the Taliban government and allowed a new civilian administration to be formed, with then president Hamid Karzai setting out on a reformist mission for his war-torn country. The road ahead opened up education for all, freedom for women to work and move around without a male guardian, an end to public executions by stoning and a new legal system in place of kangaroo courts.