Taliban guards. Illustration (Photo: Trent Innes/Shutterstock)
Another violation of women’s rights: a day after the Taliban government announced the suspension of university studies for all women in Afghanistan, armed guards were posted today (Wednesday) at the gates of universities throughout the country and prevented women from entering the campuses. Many female students who arrived at the universities had to return home, some of whom were completely unaware of the ban and only learned about it when they got to school.
According to the report in the AFP news agency, the Taliban gunmen locked the gates of the university in the capital Kabul, after many female students refused to leave the compound, burst into tears and comforted each other. At the same time, some of the students in the city of Jalalabad who were allowed to enter the university walked out of the classrooms in protest in the middle of exams, in order to show solidarity with the female students and express their opposition to the new ban.
Kabul University in Afghanistan (Photo: Shutterstock)
“We went to the university, the Taliban was at the gate and they told us that we could not enter the university until further notice. They all cried when they heard that,” said one of the female students from Kabul, who was interviewed anonymously. “We are lost, we have no possibility to do anything and no one will listen to us. We have no hope in every aspect of life – we have no jobs, we cannot go anywhere or leave the country.”
As mentioned, last night the Taliban government announced that it has suspended university studies for all women in the country, when the spokesman for the Ministry of Education in the country said that the decision was made by the cabinet and will take effect immediately. This is another violation of women’s rights in Afghanistan, which have been deteriorating since the extremist Islamist organization retook control of Afghanistan in August 2021.
The women were left out. Illustration (photo: Roshan Salih/Shutterstock)
Human rights organizations were quick to criticize the new ban, saying that it is a “shameful decision that violates the right to education for women and girls in Afghanistan. The Taliban makes it clear every day that it does not respect the basic rights of Afghans, especially women.”
The US also condemned the move, which State Department spokesman Ned Price said that “the Taliban’s decision to ban women from studying at the university cannot be justified”. .
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