KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Scottish actor and humanitarian David Hayman has claimed that Taliban members are sending their daughters to a school in Afghanistan funded by his charity, Spirit Aid.
In an interview with Scottish newspaper The Herald, Hayman said the school currently educates around 80 students, both boys and girls.
“I’ve still got my small school in Afghanistan, which caters for 80 pupils, boys and girls. The Taliban send their own daughters to the school,” he said.
Hayman condemned the Taliban’s actions, calling them “two-faced bastards” for denying education to most Afghan girls while enrolling their own children.
He did not disclose the location of the school in Afghanistan.
The actor, who founded Spirit Aid in 2001, said he hopes to stage a play highlighting the plight of Afghan women.
“Women are now non-citizens, who are no longer able to laugh or sing in their homes, where education is limited to primary school, and they can’t take jobs,” he said.
Spirit Aid has been operating in Afghanistan since 2002, providing humanitarian aid, including medical services for isolated communities, according to charity’s website.
Following their return to power in 2021, the Taliban have banned education for girls beyond the sixth grade and barred women from universities and most jobs. Despite repeated calls from the UN, human rights organizations, and the international community—including Islamic countries—the Taliban have yet to reverse their policies.
However, multiple reports indicate that some senior Taliban members are quietly securing education for their own daughters. A 2022 investigation by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) found that high-ranking Taliban members are sending their daughters to schools and universities abroad.
AAN quoted a Taliban official in Qatar who admitted to enrolling his daughters in local schools: “Since everybody in the neighborhood was going to school, our children demanded that they go to school too.”
The report also found that the daughter of a current Taliban minister is studying medicine at a university in Qatar.
“Taliban members and their families who live here [in Qatar] have strong demands for modern education, and no one opposes it for either boys or girls—of any age,” a former Taliban official based in Qatar told AAN.
