Taliban authorities on Tuesday ordered an indefinite ban on university education for girls in Afghanistan, the Ministry of Higher Education said in a letter to all state and private universities in the country.
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“You are all informed to implement the said order suspending women’s education until further notice,” Minister of Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem said in a letter addressed to all state and private universities in the country.
Ministry spokesman Ziaullah Hashimi, who tweeted the letter, also confirmed the order to AFP. No explanation has yet been provided to justify this decision.
The college ban comes less than three months after thousands of girls and women across the country took university entrance exams. Many of them aspired to careers in engineering or medicine, despite being denied access to secondary school.
When they returned to power in August 2021, the Taliban had promised to be more flexible, but they largely returned to the extremely strict interpretation of Islam that characterized their first rise to power (1996-2001).
Draconian measures have multiplied, particularly against women, who have been increasingly excluded from public life and from colleges and high schools.
In an unexpected turnaround, the Taliban closed secondary schools on March 23, just hours after their long-heralded reopening.
The Taliban Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada himself interfered in the decision, according to a senior Taliban official.
Various leaders said there were not enough teachers or money, but also that schools would reopen once an Islamic curriculum was developed.
Female civil servants are also barred from most government jobs or are paid starvation wages to stay at home.
Women are also not allowed to travel unaccompanied by a male relative and are required to wear a burqa or hijab when leaving their homes.
In November, the Taliban also banned them from parks, gardens, gymnasiums and public baths.
Demonstrations by women against these measures, rarely taking more than forty people, have become risky. Many demonstrators have been arrested and journalists are increasingly prevented from covering these rallies.
Despite their exclusion from colleges and high schools, many young women traveled to Kabul in early December to take their secondary school-leaving exams, which are required for admission to university, reporters from AFP reported.
The number of participants and the details of the exam were not disclosed by the Ministry of Education, but after more than three hours of study, several dozen young women in long black dresses came out of a facility in Kabul.