In Afghanistan, where schools for girls remain shuttered and universities have locked their gates against women, the internet was the last window connecting them to the world of knowledge. Thousands of girls in towns and villages clung to their phones and laptops, attending online classes, learning languages, gaining professional skills, and keeping alive the fragile dream of a brighter future.
Now, with the Taliban cutting fiber optic internet, even this final ray of hope is being extinguished. They know that when women have access to knowledge and information, they will not remain silent and submissive. Shutting down the internet is not a technical decision; it is part of the broader machinery of repression that has suffocated Afghan women for years.
The disruption of fiber optic internet is more than an inconvenience. It means forced deprivation from online education for thousands of women. Many young women who had secured admission to international virtual universities can no longer study. Online courses—once the only opportunity for those banned from leaving their homes—are being abandoned. Digital classes in language, computer science, and job skills are being dismantled one by one.
For Afghan women, the internet was not a luxury or a tool of leisure; it was a lifeline in the darkness of the Taliban’s misogynistic policies. With the fiber optic cut, Afghan girls are more confined than ever. The global world of learning slips further out of reach, narrowing their future into an even smaller cage.
This decision illustrates that the Taliban’s campaign of repression goes far beyond schools and universities. Any space where women can grow—whether a classroom, a workplace, a street, or even the small screen of a phone—is targeted. They leave no room for women to breathe freely.
Today, the voices of Afghan women must be heard:
Cutting internet access is closing the last window of hope. A world that remains silent in the face of this injustice becomes a silent partner in the oppression.
