Higher education is now banned for Afghan women, the Taliban government said Tuesday, December 20. “You are all obliged to implement the aforementioned order suspending women’s education until further notice,” Afghan Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem wrote in a letter to all public and private universities in the country.
Ziaullah Hashimi, spokesman for the ministry, who published the letter on Twitter, confirmed the information to Agence France-Presse (AFP). The decision was announced less than three months after college entrance exams, which thousands of girls took. They were already banned from secondary education.
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Upon their return to Kabul in August 2021, the Taliban had promised to be more flexible, but they have largely returned to the extremely strict interpretation of Islam that prevailed during their first term from 1996 to 2001. Draconian measures have multiplied, especially against women, who are increasingly excluded from public life. In an unexpected turnaround, the Taliban ordered the closure of middle and high schools for girls on March 23, just hours after their long-heralded reopening.
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