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CNN Live Sunday

Afghan Girls Go Back to School

Aired December 30, 2001 - 15:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: Well, a new school year, and a new start for some young girls in Afghanistan. With less than the basics, women and girls are going back to classrooms for an education, also a chance for their future.

More now from CNN's John Vause in Kabul.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): At Kabul's main school for girls, something which hasn't happened for five years, mothers dropping off their daughters for class. This was more than the start of a new school year, but the end of an era, where women everywhere across Afghanistan were denied basic human rights like education.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I feel so happy. I'm glad because I come school. Yes.

VAUSE (on camera): What would you like to study? What do you want to be?

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I want to be a doctor for my future.

VAUSE: Do many girls here like Seda (ph) want to be doctors, teachers, educated working professionals, but they are starting with nothing. Classrooms have no desks or chairs. There are no books or pens or pencils. There's not even chalk for the blackboard. Many windows don't have glass.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Can you help us? The world? We don't have anything. We want the world -- we hope the world, all the world, they can help -- if they can help.

VAUSE: Compared to other schools around Afghanistan, the facilities here aren't too bad. That's because when the Taliban were in power, it was a madrassa, used to teach only boys and only Islamic law.

(voice-over): Many girls did receive some education over the past five years, illegally at home. Their teachers risked going to jail.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: It was very difficult for us to be in Taliban situation. It was very hard situation. And we can't go at schools and we was at home with sadness.

VAUSE: Despite the almost overwhelming job ahead, there was much joy here today, for both teachers and students, simply to start a new school year. But as the school's principal told me, the world was so critical of the Taliban. Now she says, the time has come to show that it is serious about helping the women of Afghanistan.

John Vause, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

KAGAN: We can only hope. Help on the way for those women and young girls trying to get an education.

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