Afghanistan: Taliban university ban sparks fresh protests
December 22, 2022
Women have rallied in Kabul after the Taliban enforced a ban on female higher education. The decision sparked an international outcry, including from Muslim-majority countries.
The Taliban's decision to ban women from universities has stirred outrageImage: AP Photo/picture alliance
Local media reported that some protesters and journalists were arrested during Thursday's rally.
The women chanted in Dari slogans like, "Don't be afraid. We are together," and, "Rights for everyone or no one!"
The Taliban have so far not reacted to the backlash against the ban. A spokesman for the Higher Education Ministry said Thursday that a news conference would be held this week to "to elaborate more on the closure of universities for women."
University ban: Afghanistan's disenfranchised women
Since seizing power in mid-2021, the Taliban have increasingly restricted the rights of Afghan women and girls. Now, the hardline Islamists are denying women access to higher education, sparking international outrage.
Image: AFP
Leaving for good?
A woman in a burqa leaves a university in Kandahar province. She won't be allowed to return. In a government statement Tuesday, the hardline Islamist Taliban instructed all universities in Afghanistan, private and public, to ban women from attending. As of now, all female students are barred from universities.
Image: AFP
Women are excluded
Taliban control the entrance to a university in Kabul the day after the university ban was imposed. Female students are told they cannot go in. The ban is set to remain in place indefinitely. There have, however, already been some signs of protest at the universities: Male students walked out of an exam, and some male teachers went on strike.
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
Higher education for men only
Some restrictions had already been put in place before now. After the Taliban took power in August 2021, universities had to separate entrances and classrooms by gender. Women could only be taught by other women or by old men. This picture shows how screens separated an area for female students at Kandahar University.
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The last of their kind
These female students at Benawa University in Kandahar were still able to graduate in March with degrees in engineering and computer science. The renewed restriction of women's rights in Afghanistan has come in for heavy international criticism. Human Rights Watch called the university ban a "shameful decision," while the UN said it violated women's human rights.
Image: JAVED TANVEER/AFP
'Devastating impact on the country's future'
Thousands of girls and women took university entrance exams as recently as October —as here, at Kabul University. Many wanted to study medicine or become teachers. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said the university ban "not only violates the equal rights of women and girls, but will have a devastating impact on the country's future."
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
No educational opportunities for girls
The ban on university attendance is yet another restriction on educational opportunities for women and girls. For over a year now, teenage girls have only been able to attend secondary school up to seventh grade in most parts of the country. These girls walking to school in eastern Afghanistan are lucky: Some of the provinces away from the Taliban's central powerbases are ignoring the ban.
Image: AFP
Land of invisible women
Girls and women are now excluded from most aspects of Afghan public life. They haven't been allowed to visit gyms or parks in Kabul for months. Even this amusement park in the capital is off-limits to female visitors. The Taliban justify the ban by saying regulations on the separation of the sexes were not being observed, and women were not wearing the headscarf as required by the Taliban.
Image: WAKIL KOHSAR/AFP/Getty Images
Dystopian reality
Women gather saffron flowers in Herat province. This is work they are allowed to do, unlike most other professions. Since coming to power, the Taliban have enacted a great many regulations that hugely restrict the lives of women and girls. For example, they are forbidden from traveling without a male companion and must wear the hijab or burqa outside their home at all times.
Image: MOHSEN KARIMI/AFP
'A blot of shame on the world'
Many Afghan women refuse to accept the abolition of their rights. These women were demonstrating in Kabul in November. A placard, in English, reads "Horrific Condition of Afghan Women Is A Blot of Shame to the World Conscience." Anyone who dares to protest requires a great deal of courage. Demonstrators risk beatings and imprisonment, and women's rights activists are persecuted in Afghanistan.
Image: AFP
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How did the Taliban government respond?
A statement from the Taliban's Higher Education minister on Thursday defended the decision.
Minister Nida Mohammad Nadim said the ban was necessary to prevent the mixing of genders in universities and because women were not adhering to the Islamic dress code. He also expressed beliefs that some of the subjects taught at university violated Islamic principles.
Nadim told Afghan television that though the ban was in place until further notice, it could be reviewed at a later date.
When asked about the international condemnation the ban has thus far received, Nadim said foreigners should stop interfering in his country's internal affairs.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu called on the Taliban to reverse the ban, which he said was "neither Islamic nor humane."
"What harm is there in women's education? What harm does it to do Afghanistan?" Cavusoglu said. "Is there an Islamic explanation? On the contrary, our religion, Islam, is not against education, on the contrary, it encourages education and science."
Saudi Arabia also urged the Taliban to change course. A Saudi Foreign Ministry statement said the decision was "astonishing in all Islamic countries."
The ban has also triggered a wave of condemnation from the UN and Western countries, including Germany.
The Group of Seven economic group (G7) joined the chorus of condemnation on Thursday. G7 ministers urged in a virtual meeting the Taliban to rescind the ban. They warned that similar decisions curtailing women's rights and aiming to "erase women from public life" will impact how members engage with the group.
The G7 ministers said that "gender persecution may amount to a crime against humanity."
Taliban crack down on women's rights
The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in August 2021 amid a chaotic pullout of US-led NATO forces from the country.
Not only did the Taliban ban girls from middle and high schools, they also banned women from several fields of employment. Women are also not allowed in parks and gyms.
The repression of women's rights has contributed to hampering the Taliban-led administration's efforts to gain international recognition, which would help lift sanctions amid the deteriorating state of the Afghan economy.
