Monitoring Desk
ISLAMABAD/KABUL: Male Afghan students trickled back to their classes on Monday after Afghan universities reopened following the winter break, but Afghan women remain barred by the Taliban authorities.
According to Arab News, the university ban is one of many restrictions imposed on Afghan women and girls since the Taliban government came back into power in August 2021 and sparked world outrage, including across the Muslim world.
“It’s heartbreaking to see Afghan boys going to the universities while we have to stay at home,” said Rahela, from the central province of Ghor.
“This is gender discrimination against women because Islam allows us to pursue higher education. Nobody should stop us from learning.”
The Taliban administration imposed the restrictions after accusing women and girls students of ignoring a dress code and a requirement to be accompanied by an Afghan male relative to and from campus.
Many universities had already introduced gender-segregated classrooms
Many universities had already introduced gender-segregated entrances and classrooms, allowing women to be taught only by female professors or older men.
“It’s painful to see that thousands of Afghan women are deprived of education today,” Mohammad Haseeb Habibzadah, a computer science student at Herat university, told AFP.
“We are trying to address this problem by talking to lecturers and other Afghan students so that there can be a way where girls and boys could study and progress together.”
Ejatullah Nejati, an engineering student at the Afghanistan’s most significant University in Kabul, said it was the fundamental right of women to study.
“Even if they attend university classes on separate days, it’s not an issue. They have a right to education, and the right should be given to them,” said Nejati as he entered a university campus.
Many Taliban officials said that the restrictions on girls’ education are temporary, but, despite promises, they failed to reopen secondary schools and also for girls, which have been shut for more than a year.
They have wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure, from the lack of aid to the time needed to remodel the syllabus along the Islamic lines.
A reality, according to a few Taliban governments, is that the ultra-conservative clerics advising Hibatullah Akhundzada, Afghanistan’s supreme leader, are deeply skeptical of modern education for women.
The Taliban government has effectively squeezed women out of public life since retaking power.
Women have been removed from several government jobs and are paid a fraction of their former salary to stay at home.
They are barred from going to parks, gyms, fairs, and public baths and must cover up in public.
Rights groups have condemned the ban, which the United Nations (UN) called “gender-based apartheid.”
The world community has made the right to education for women a sticking point in talks over aid and recognition of the Taliban government.
No nation has so far officially recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan’s legitimate ruler.
