Female university students were told the news and to go home immediately.
Source: The Guardian
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.
The Wall Street Journal lists some of the further restrictions since the Taliban came to power. In March, they forbade girls from attending school beyond 6th grade.
Wednesday’s announcement came a day after the Taliban government closed universities to women and further restricts opportunities for Afghan girls and women, who have been pushed out of public and professional life since the hard-line movement took power.
Women now need a male guardian to travel more than 48 miles, or to undertake basic tasks such as entering government buildings, seeing a doctor or taking a taxi. They are banned from nearly all jobs, except medical professions and, until Wednesday, teaching. Women also can no longer visit public parks.
