Reports | 25 05 2020
ISIS is now preventing girls from learning when they turn fifteen. Three girls from Raqqa were, however, able to escape their miserable city to complete their education in the Wadi al-Nasara [Valley of the Christians] near the city of Homs. Of course, the story is not that simple...
So, What is the Story?
Aisha tells Rozana: "The organization [ISIS] closed down girls' schools in Raqqa, turning them into its own centers and warehouses. Every girl and her guardian would be punished by flogging if they were to receive education," she says. "My father refused to accept us remaining without education. He therefore suggested that we complete our education in Wadi al-Nasara, where my father's relative, Hanan, lived."
From Raqqa, ISIS' capital, using their older aunts' ID cards; sisters Aisha, Nada, and their friend Nisreen were able to escape ISIS' brunt to the relatively-safe Wadi al-Nasara in the western Homs countryside, where Hanan had been waiting for them to quietly complete their secondary education.
The eldest Aisha was deprived from performing her secondary school certificate examinations for the past two years, due to the outbreak of the events in Raqqa and ISIS overtaking it. She tells Rozana "ISIS thrust us back into the Stone Age. I'm not [mentally or religiously] incapacitated to be deprived of learning... I should have been in university now."
The three girls pursue their daily studies in the town of Mazyanah in Wadi al-Nasara, trying to make up for lost time. Says Nada: "We will try as much as possible to achieve success with good grades... What is important is for us not to go back to Raqqa; ISIS is committing too many crimes against women there."
Nisreen: No to the Niqab!
Nasreen—or the "Raqqa girl," as called her colleagues at the Mazyanah School call her—rejects the idea of wearing the Niqab [full body veil]. To her, this does not represent the values of Islam; she will only wear the Hijab veil [head cover] as her cousins. She confirms to Rozana her good relations with her fellow Christian schoolmates as well as her neighbors in her neighborhood in Mazyanah.
ISIS, which has declared its full control of the entire province of Raqqa on the 24th of August last year, is guilty of crimes described by the media as "savage."
A New Hurdle
The "Raqqa girls" fumbling journey of education will not stop at this point. The girls will be forced, with the end of the school year and the approach of the secondary school certificate examinations, to move to Hama. The Ministry of Education has insisted that they write their exams there. Says Aisha "I thought that ISIS' injustice was injustice enough... Now we are forced to change our location, and move to live in Hama for our examinations... I'm going to go there soon to look for a house to rented during the exam period."
Hopeful for good exam results, the three girls show a strong desire to pursue their university studies afterwards. Perhaps not as much out of love of learning as university might offer them the opportunity to distance themselves from the hell of ISIS—as they see it.