Taliban Bans Women In Afghanistan From Attending University

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women, the ministry of higher education said in a letter issued to all government and private universities.

 “You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said the letter signed by the minister for higher education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem. 

 The ministry’s spokesperson, Ziaullah Hashimi, who tweeted the letter, confirmed the order in a text message to Agence France-Presse. 

 “My female students are distraught and I don’t know how to console them,” said Meena, 52, a lecturer in Afghanistan who used a pseudonym for fear of retaliation. “One of them moved to Kabul from a remote province, overcoming so many hardships, because she got into a prestigious university here. All her hopes and dreams were crushed today.”

 Meena, who was at university when the Taliban last seized power in the late 1990s, said she could well understand her student’s fears.

 “I lost many years of my education last time they were in power. And the day the Taliban took over Kabul, I knew that they would ban the girls from university. 

 “They may seem like a changed group with their smartphones, social media accounts and nice cars, but they are the same Taliban that denied me the education and are now killing the future of my students,” she said. Prof Manizha Ramizy, an exiled child rights activist, said she had received panicked messages from her female students.“

They are scared and terrified, looking at a hopeless future,” she said. 

 Afghan women have been subjected to months of increasingly tighter restrictions, she said, but many had still hoped that education would remain accessible.