Taliban Afghanistan has excluded women from being able to attend universities in Afghanistan. It caused international condemnation and despair among the country’s young generation.
The higher education minister announced the inversion on Tuesday, claiming it would take effect immediately. The ban further restricts women’s education; girls have already been banned from attending secondary schools since the return of the Taliban last year.
On Wednesday, some women began protesting in Kabul, the capital.
“Today we are taking to the streets of Kabul to protest the closure of women’s universities,” said protesters from the group Unity and Solidarity of Women in Afghanistan.
The students expressed their emotional pain to the BBC. “They destroyed the only bridge that might have connected me to my future,” said one Kabul University student.
“How should I react?“
She studied Sharia Islamic law and argued that the Taliban’s order contradicted “the rights given to us by Islam and Allah.”
The United Nations and several countries have condemned the order, which returns Afghanistan to the first period of Taliban Afghanistan rule. Back then, even girls could not go to a proper school. According to the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation in Afghanistan, this is “a new series that further undermines the right to equal education and deepens the erasure of women from Afghan society.“
“Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans,” State Department Secretary Anthony Blinken said in a statement. “No country can progress if half of its people are held back.”
Western countries have been demanding all year that the Taliban improve women’s education if they want to be recognized as the government of Afghanistan. However, the foreign minister of neighboring Pakistan said that while he was “disappointed” by the Taliban’s decision, he was still in favor of engagement. Despite the many setbacks in women’s education and other regions,
“I still believe that the easiest way to reach our goal is through Kabul and the interim government.” said Bilawal Bhutto Zardari. After taking power last year following the US withdrawal from the country, the same Taliban Afghanistan has promised a softer rule. However, hard-line Islamists in the country continued to erode women’s rights and freedoms. Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban leader, and his inner circle strongly opposed modern education, especially for girls and women.
More moderate officials have voiced opposition to the stance, and analysts say it has been a source of dissent all year. Despite this, the education ministry said on Tuesday that scientists had assessed the university’s curriculum and environment and that girls’ attendance would be suspended “until an appropriate environment is provided.”
It is added that they will soon provide such a setting and that “citizens should not be worried.” However, the Taliban Afghanistan promised to reopen some high schools for girls in March but then canceled the move on the day they were due to return. The decision follows several new restrictions on women in recent months. In November, it excluded women from the capital’s parks, gyms, and public bathrooms.
According to an Afghan activist and university lecturer in the United States, the Taliban must have completed the isolation of women by suspending their universities. “Afghanistan is a cage for women instead of a country for women.”
Before Tuesday’s announcement, the universities had been operating under a pro-Taliban policy since the Taliban took power in 2021. Gender-separated entrances and classrooms appeared, and female students could only be taught by female professors or older men. Women, in contrast, continued their education. Female enrollment in higher education increased 20 fold between 2001 and 2018, according to UNESCO, during the Taliban’s rule. Several women told the BBC they had given up after the Taliban Afghanistan regained power because of “too many difficulties.“
More than once a month, there is speculation that the Taliban government will restrict women from attending universities.
They banned women from parks, gyms, and swimming pools last month. The Taliban government failed to fulfill its commitment to open secondary schools for girls in March of this year.
Talks with Taliban leaders over the past year have also revealed that the Taliban are divided on girls’ education.
Unofficially, some members of the Taliban Afghanistan have repeatedly stated that they hope and work for girls to receive an education.
Girls were allowed to take their matriculation exams in 31 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces, despite not being allowed to attend school for more than a year.
It gave a glimmer of hope, which is now beginning to fade.
