AFGHANISTAN: Afghanistan’s Taliban-run higher education ministry has said that female students would not be allowed access to the country’s universities until further notice.
A letter, confirmed by a spokesperson for the Higher Education Ministry on Tuesday, instructed Afghan public and private universities to suspend access to female students immediately, in accordance with a Cabinet decision.
The spokesman for the ministry, Ziaullah Hashimi, who tweeted the letter, confirmed the order to several news agencies.
UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric described the move as “troubling”.
“It’s clearly another broken promise from the Taliban,” Dujarric told reporters on Tuesday.
“We have seen since their takeover … a lessening of space for women, not only in education, but access to public areas,” he said.
The Taliban has defended its decision, saying such restrictions have been done to preserve “national interest” and women’s “honour”.
Several Taliban officials said the secondary education ban is only temporary, but they have also 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.
It has also restricted women from most fields of employment, ordered them to wear head-to-toe clothing in public, and banned them from parks and gyms.
- ALJAZEERA
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