India: The Challenge of Educating Muslim Girls
Posted on June 1, 2010, by Hanna Ingber Win, under Health, India, International, women.
VIHOOR, India — The air feels cool at this early hour in the village.
As roosters yap away, a small truck delivers a crate of plastic bags filled with fresh milk to a roadside shop. A man rides by on a bicycle with a girl in her school uniform sitting in front and two little girls behind him.
On both sides of the road, girls in matching blue and white outfits gather at the bus stops. A young one with braided pigtails and a backpack waits patiently. An older one wearing a white headscarf and matching pants soon joins her, and a mother dressed in a black burqa walks them to school.
In Vihoor village on the Konkan Coast about 100 miles south of Mumbai, the Muslim women almost all stay at home raising their children, and when they go out, they virtually all wear the burqa. In many ways, the village is conservative and deeply entrenched in tradition, yet family after family here said their community is undergoing a significant if gradual change: more girls are going to school, and for longer.
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