acm-header
Sign In

Communications of the ACM

ACM News

Some Members of Afghanistan’s All-Girls Robotics Team Flee


Afghanistans all-girl robotics team working on a project aimed at detecting embedded mines, at their lab in Herat in April.

The hard-line Islamist movement barred girls from attending school when it last ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, and although its leaders say they will allow greater freedoms, many Afghans are skeptical.

Credit: Jalil Rezayee/EPA/Shutterstock

Some members of an Afghan girls' robotics team that captured international attention have arrived in Qatar, the group says, joining a growing number of people fleeing the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan.

Members of the team left Kabul on a commercial flight on Tuesday and will remain in Qatar to continue their education, according to a statement on Wednesday by the team's founder, the Afghan tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob.

Other girls on the robotics team, Afghanistan's first, planned to remain in the country, where Ms. Mahboob acknowledged that they face a worrying future under the Taliban. The hard-line Islamist movement barred girls from attending school when it last ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, and although its leaders say they will allow greater freedoms, many Afghans are skeptical.

"The Taliban have promised to allow girls to be educated to whatever extent allowed by Shariah law," Ms. Mahboob said. "We will have to wait and see to what that means."

From The New York Times
View Full Article

 


 

No entries found