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HUNDREDS OF YOUNG women have been stopped by armed guards from entering Afghan university campuses, a day after the nation’s Taliban rulers banned them from higher education in another assault on human rights.
Despite promising a softer rule when they seized power last year, the hardline Islamists have ratcheted up restrictions on all aspects of women’s lives, ignoring international outrage.
A team of AFP journalists saw groups of students gathered outside universities in the capital, Kabul, barred from entering by armed guards and shuttered gates.
Many, dressed in hijabs, were also seen standing in groups on roads leading to the campuses.
“We are doomed. We have lost everything,” said one student, who asked not to be identified.
Men students also expressed shock at the latest edict.
“It really expresses their illiteracy and low knowledge of Islam and human rights,” said one, also asking not to be named.
“If the situation continues like this the future will be worse. Everyone is scared.”
Most private and government universities are closed for a few weeks over winter, although campuses generally remain open to students and staff.
The decision to bar women from universities came late Tuesday in a terse announcement from Neda Mohammad Nadeem, the Minister for Higher Education.
“You all are informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” it said.
Washington condemned the decision “in the strongest terms.”
“The Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all in Afghanistan. This decision will come with consequences for the Taliban,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, meanwhile, was “deeply alarmed”, his spokesman said Tuesday.
“The secretary-general reiterates that the denial of education not only violates the equal rights of women and girls, but will have a devastating impact on the country’s future,” Stephane Dujarric said in a statement.
The ban on higher education comes less than three months after thousands of girls and women were allowed to sit for university entrance exams across the country, with many aspiring to choose teaching and medicine as future careers.
Most teenage girls across the country have already been banned from secondary school, severely limiting university intake anyway.
After the Taliban takeover in August last year, universities were forced to implement new rules including gender-segregated classrooms and entrances, while women were only permitted to be taught by professors of the same sex, or old men.
- ‘Serious differences’ -
The Taliban adhere to an austere version of Islam, with the movement’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and his inner circle of clerics against modern education, especially for girls and women.
But they are at odds with many officials in Kabul — and among their rank and file — who had hoped girls would be allowed to continue learning following the takeover.
“The latest decision will increase these differences,” a Taliban commander based in northwest Pakistan told AFP on condition of anonymity.
In a cruel U-turn, the Taliban in March blocked girls from returning to secondary schools on the morning they were supposed to reopen.
Several Taliban officials maintained the secondary education ban was only temporary, but have wheeled out a litany of excuses for the closure — from a lack of funds to the time needed to remodel the syllabus along Islamic lines.
Since the ban, many teenage girls have been married off early — often to much older men of their father’s choice.
Several families interviewed by AFP last month said that, coupled with economic pressure, the school ban meant that securing their daughters’ future through marriage was better than them sitting idle at home.
- International pressure -
Women have also been pushed out of many government jobs — or are being paid a pittance of their former salary to stay at home. They are also barred from travelling without a male relative and must cover up outside of the home, ideally with a burqa.
In November, women were prohibited from going to parks, funfairs, gyms and public baths.
The international community has made the right to education for all women a sticking point in negotiations over aid and recognition of the Taliban regime.
Afghanistan’s neighbour, Pakistan, said that engagement with the Taliban was still the best path forward.
“I’m disappointed by the decision that was taken today,” Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto Zardari said Tuesday on a visit to Washington.
But, he added: “I still think the easiest path to our goal — despite having a lot of setbacks when it comes to women’s education and other things — is through Kabul and through the interim government.”
In the 20 years between the Taliban’s two reigns, girls were allowed to go to school and women were able to seek employment in all sectors, though the country remained socially conservative.
The authorities have also returned to public floggings and executions of men and women in recent weeks as they implement an extreme interpretation of Islamic sharia law.
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It’s definitely because they are afraid of women. Educated women are a major threat to their agenda. It’s so sad and so vile for those girls. I hope they can find a way around it.
@Anna Carr: no, it’s to prevent earthquakes. Everyone knows that earthquakes are caused by women wearing jeans, and many women in universities wear jeans. So, for our safety, it is necessary that women do not go to universities.
@John Mulligan: lol
@Anna Carr: “It’s definitely because they are afraid of women. Educated women are a major threat to their agenda.”
They don’t fear women, they view them as property and an educated woman can be easily silenced with a bullet. The only way out of this is to leave/escape or rebel en masse.
@Will: It’s definitely because they are afraid of women but they aren’t? Jaysus Will stick to calling people tarts.I do agree as regards internal uprising though. The bloodshed that entails is horrific though.
I find it absolutely incredible that such a society can still be allowed to exist in these times. What is the point of the UN? Certainly not to go where needed, unless there’s a political agenda as opposed to a human rights one.
I despair for the future of humanity as it would appear that we are the architect’s of our own extinction.
@John Mulligan: THe UN does not have the authority to go into a country and initiate regime change, just because we don’t like the method of government there (regardless of how evil and nasty it is)- that’s why countries find excuses like WMDs to go in and invade a country… Foreign governments have been attempting to put their own stamp on that country for the last few hundred years and all they have suceeded in doing is making it a lawless basket case.
@John Mulligan: ‘Allowed’ ?
@Keth Warsaw: Yes . Nobody wants these dystopian societies to continue their abuse of their own people. I think you strayed in here Keth you product of western culture unable to string a sentence together.
Women are being pushed out of Government jobs in Afghanistan..
Sounds like Ireland up to the 1980s when once a woman got married she was forced to resign from any Government job .
But we are so quick now to condemn less advanced countries.
@Roger Bond: and so we should be. Are you saying that they shouldn’t be condemned? And are sure they’re not advanced but rather led by religious fervour?
@Roger Bond: Oh shut up you tart!
@Roger Bond: ah sure tis grand so they are “less advanced” than us.
@Roger Bond: But, interestingly, while the law said she had to resign, she could also reapply for the vacant position! Married women could apply for positions. An odd loophole.
@Roger Bond: And so we should be. Condemn the bejayus out of them of them on the world stage. Show these women they have support. It will mean little as they will suffer but something nonetheless.
@Will: Yeah Roger you tart put a sock in it. Unusual way of putting it Will but I’m all for it. Roger you know what you are.
Some might ask ‘Who or what is western culture to suggest change in foreign cultures…such changes that might initially be justified, but which might have deeply changing effects in decades to come upon said foreign cultures?’ And yet, there are others that decry the loss of other cultures: the Red Indians, Aztecs, Aborigini’s etc. Is it correct for western culture to pick and choose what is right and wrong within another culture while defending ‘to the hilt’ any and all criticism by a exterior forces upon its own way of life, however detrimental the the effects (some of) the wests culture has had upon the planet et all.
@Keth Warsaw: Enough of this false equivalence and whataboutery. There has to be some things we can agree on as human beings.
Women are not property.
Homosexuals are not criminals.
Your religion doesn’t give you the right to abuse others who don’t share your beliefs.
If you agree with the three points above then you must condemn the Taliban.
Also, you talk of culture but that’s not what this is. Afghanistan was one of the most liberal countries in the near east until the 80′s and the Soviet invasion. The Taliban are destroying Afghani culture, not protecting it.
@Will: I’m not invested in any foreign culture. I’m a product of the west. But that said, I am interested in where the line of trying to change/westernise foreign cultures starts and stops.
@Will: I would suggest you don’t have the right to say to another, me, ‘Enough’. If I may remind you, we both live in the free west where open discussion is, ideally, permitted. Correct me if I am wrong?
@Keth Warsaw: Red Indians Jaysus. Have you escaped from the seventies? So if people are (usually women let’s be honest )are struggling against oppression we shouldn’t support them in any way we can. The “west’s culture” leaves a lot to be desired but most of us want to make it better and to not to throw people off buildings because of who they love.
@Keth Warsaw: You primarily Keth are a product of your own warped mind. You have absolutely nothing to offer other than your warped views. The only thing that really interests you is shoehorning some archaic fantasy of yours into modern Irish society. Nobody is buying what you have to sell. On your bike Keth
@Keth Warsaw: Doesn’t seem likely Keth . You are here with an agenda. Unfortunately you were at the back of queue at some point. I’m sure it’s not your fault I mean someone took advantage of you. I mean maybe they did or you are cackhandedly trying to further your own aims . Blimey Keth it’s like mystery mixed with an enigma. So Keth you seem to have run away. I would be really upset if you thought I had drawn attention to your pulsillanimist nature (ahem) in no way was that my intention.
@Daftbit Jelly: All the best for your future endeavours. Not being critical but you need vocabulary if you are doing the whole raised in western culture thing. Also the whole birthrate thing . Nobody cares. All right maybe statisticians or Issac Assimov ( no he’s dead) Shitë he wasn’t very nice apparently. A bit like you Keth with the women thing.
Not my words, but there are those who would suggest that the drop in western population, resulting in an aging population, and the need for foreign importation of peoples willing to contribute to western population numbers for the safe upkeep of government coffers is the result of western women choosing a career over having children at a safe age that guarantees healthy children, and a sustainable number of them. Unfortunately, we cannot eat our cake and have it to.
@Keth Warsaw: Certainly we can. We do in Ireland where we have a relatively higher younger population. Besides, your stats are out of date – plenty of women chose to have children during the pandemic, and worldwide, people had less stressful pregnancies and far fewer stillbirths because of increased flexibility. Credit where it’s due to companies that facilitated their working from home. Our government’s job is to ensure that they all have equal rights, avoid the poverty trap and don’t regret choosing to have children. Incidentally, when did you last bake a cake for anyone : – P
@Fiona Fitzgerald: By the very mature of it, I don’t think you can generally, sorry. If so, why are western birth rates falling?
Yep/cook. Sunday. Apple tart, friends.
@Keth Warsaw: Meant to say ‘nature’….but I think ‘mature’ will suffice.
@Keth Warsaw: I’m thinking you might be a Barbarian Keth. I’m thinking you might be wanting women barefoot and pregnant and presumably cooking your dinner. You are obsolete Keth past your sell by date.
@Keth Warsaw: Two unrelated words Keth. You being a product of ” western society” I believe given your ability to talk shïte.
@Keth Warsaw: So western birth rates are your main concern Keth? Really?
@Daftbit Jelly: I respectfully disagree Sir. Again, and for the records of futurity, I have no investment in this main subject, but only in examining the claw-like tendrals that the west craves in spreading. Should the headhunters of some distant forest in a far-off region of thus sphere be pulled up and corrected for such ‘deemed’ savagery, or should we let them be and value them as a cultural tidbit?
@Daftbit Jelly: You’re a bounder sir. You, who uses the word ‘daft’ within your moniker. I should add, the robots now inform me that using your name may be perceived as toxic. The humanity!
@Daftbit Jelly: western birthrate my main concern? No. The splicing of the atom and the invention of a device capable of increasing time ratio whilst able to float via anti-gravity pendulums is my main concern. That, and pudding….
@Keth Warsaw – (sorry the reply feature doesn’t seem to work for me)
All this talk about culture is moot in this case. Yes, we in the west have no right to dictate what women of Afghanistan can and can’t do.
If an Afghan woman wants to wear a burqa or stay home from college or whatever in the name of preserving her culture, fine. No one is saying she shouldn’t be allowed. The problem here is *they don’t have the option*. These people *want* to work, to go to school, college, public parks, etc.
The question of whether we have a right to think they should follow our culture goes out the window – (or maybe even works in our favour) when their oppressive culture is being forced upon them at gunpoint!
It’s not about the specific traditions, it’s about them having the choice.
have your say