Barbie’s Slogan In Afghanistan Would Have To Be — ‘You Can Be Nothing’.

When the Taliban robs young girls’ futures.

Tina Viju
Blue Insights
Published in
3 min readAug 21, 2023

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Photo by Sandra Gabriel on Unsplash

The world is temporarily hued pink following Barbie’s blockbuster success. Loaded with empowering messages, Barbie is true to its official slogan — ‘You can be anything’.

It hopes to inspire young girls all over the world to dream big and break through all barriers.

However, if you are a young girl growing up in Afghanistan your dreams will remain just that.

Enter the Taliban, the official dream crusher.

The Taliban seized power in August 2021, as U.S led forces withdrew their troops. Since then it has progressively implemented over 20 written and verbal decrees on girls’ education — with each edict adding more and more restrictions.

Back to school shopping, what’s that?

On 22 March 2023, Afghan girls hoped against hope that they would finally get back to school after 2 years. However, their simple dreams were shattered once again when they were forbidden yet again from attending secondary school and places of higher education.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world that denies girls an education.

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Tina Viju
Blue Insights

Cancer geek . Lover of words & fried rice . Memory Keeper