Female madrassa students condemned to isolation and hysteria
Faisalabad (AsiaNews) They have no access to radio, television or computers; they study obsolete subject matters and they even ignore that there are places beyond where they live; they are girls attending madrassas or Islamic schools.
AsiaNews has interviewed some Muslim experts about the serious psychological problems these girls face, forced into a life of isolation and claustrophobia, living on the margins of the society they inhabit.
For months now, Islamic schools have come under the spotlight of international media. After it was discovered that one of the July 7 London bombers had attended an Islamic school in Pakistan, Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf ordered the expulsion of all foreigners from local madrassas, now seen as a fertile breeding ground for terrorists.
In the case of girls, private schools run by fundamentalist imams without government control are responsible for holding them back.
"With the education girls are getting from their madrassas, they cannot play any active role in society, although they make up half of the population of the country," Shagufta Ahsan, a Muslim attorney, and Sheik Mansoor Ahmad, also a Muslim attorney and human rights activist, told AsiaNews.
Mr Ahmad is just back from visiting a madrassa in Faisalabad, whose name he did not reveal for security reasons.
"Girls receive an exclusively religious education in a suffocating atmosphere. Not only are modern subjects like computer science not taught, but they are denied access to radio, TV and computers. All they know is where their madrassa is located and their home village which they visit from time to time," he said.
"The girls don't even know that there are cities outside their own. They are taught neither English nor science, math or computer science. As a consequence, many suffer from hysteria and need psychological assistance," he added.
For Ahsan, girls educated at madrassas "will not be able to play any active role in society even if they constitute half of Pakistan's population" (now estimated to be over 162 million).
Islamic schools provide free education and shelter but many are able to avoid state control and teach independent curricula centred on the study of religion.
The conditions women face are already difficult and most girls come from poor, rural families where literacy is very low. Under such circumstances, Ahsan notes, women are completely dependent on men.
"They can't even go and see a doctor in emergency situations without being accompanied," she said.
"There isn't any restriction to modern education for girls in Islam. And if they are equipped with other skills like English, science and computer their minds will be broadened and they can have a better vision of society," she noted. Instead, "girls in madrassas are denied extracurricular activities which might make their stay at such schools less suffocating."
According to Ahmad, the Pakistani government has a basic duty to control these schools and those who run them.
The human rights activist insists that Muslim clergymen should be educated to the value of inter-faith dialogue, tolerance and modernity.
In Islam, Jihad or holy war can be declared when the religion is in danger, but only the government, not clergymen as it often the case, has a right to do so.
"[Changing girls' education] will be a difficult and time-consuming goal to achieve, but it will surely be a positive and constructive development," Ahmad said.
In the meantime, President Musharraf has ordered that all Quranic schools be registered by the end of the year.
Ahmad warns however that Muslim clergymen are opposed to the measure, concerned that they might lose their monopoly in education.
There are no accurate figures as to the number of madrassas in Pakistan. Estimates put the total at somewhere between 10 and 13,000. Recent media stories have mentioned some 16,000.
Funding largely comes from rich Muslims from Islamic countries like Saudi Arabia.
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