As Kabul wakes up, across the city, teenage girls are taking a risk by defying Taliban rules.
In the Afghan capital, some secondary schools have remained open in secret, despite the prohibition on girls from following an education beyond the sixth year, that is to say from the age of 12.
Every weekday, 230 teenage girls travel to this school for a few hours of lessons.
"We always come here scared (...). We are scared in the street, on the road, but I don't want to be illiterate", explains a pupil.
After their chemistry class, these girls aged 15 to 16 say that the school ban motivates them all the more to learn and play a role in public life.
This is a new challenge for them.
>> See also, our Focus: Afghanistan: in Herat too, young girls remain deprived of school by the Taliban
"I want to be an economist because today I see that our people need a good economy and that (the latter) is in very bad shape", explains a teenager.
Another student wants to play politics: "After the arrival of the Taliban, I became more courageous than before. Now I am more proud of myself as an Afghan girl."
Since the school is illegal, the girls will not obtain a diploma and therefore cannot, as things stand, enter university.
Despite international pressure, schools for older girls are only open in a handful of Afghanistan's 34 provinces.
For the vast majority, their education depends only on the courage of determined activists, taking risks for a generation of Afghan girls.
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