Taliban bar ladies from college training in Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on college training for the nation’s ladies, the ministry of upper training mentioned in a letter issued to all authorities and personal universities.

The ban on larger training comes simply three months after 1000’s of ladies throughout the nation took college entrance exams (File)

By India Today Web Desk: The Taliban’s larger training ministry has ordered an indefinite ban on college training for ladies in Afghanistan within the newest edict cracking down on ladies’s rights and freedoms, drawing sturdy worldwide condemnation.

The announcement got here because the United Nations Security Council met in New York and the US State Department introduced the discharge of two Americans detained by the Taliban.

Despite initially promising a extra reasonable rule respecting rights for ladies and minorities, the Taliban have broadly applied their strict interpretation of Islamic legislation since seizing management of the nation final 12 months.

They banned ladies from center college and highschool, restricted ladies from most employment, and ordered them to put on head-to-toe clothes in public.

Women have been additionally banned from parks and gymnasiums and prevented from travelling and not using a male family member.

A letter, confirmed by a spokesperson for the upper training ministry, instructed Afghan private and non-private universities to droop entry to feminine college students instantly, in accordance with a Cabinet resolution.

Read | Has the Taliban Veil over Afghanistan turn into darker, impenetrable?

‘CAN’T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT’

The ban on larger training comes weeks after Afghan ladies sat college entrance exams throughout the nation. Until now, some ladies had been allowed to proceed their college research, however in gender-segregated lecture rooms.

Students attend a category with women and men separated by a curtain at a personal college in Kabul (Photo: AFP)

“I can’t fulfil my dreams, my hopes. Everything is disappearing before my eyes, and I can’t do anything about it,” mentioned a third-year journalism and communication pupil at Nangarhar University. She didn’t wish to be recognized for worry of reprisals.

“Is being a girl a crime? If that’s the case, I wish I wasn’t a girl,” she added.

“My father had dreams for me that his daughter would become a talented journalist in the future. That is now destroyed. So, you tell me, how will a person feel in this situation?”

Read | Taliban’s curbs on ladies’s freedom might quantity to crimes towards humanity: UN rights knowledgeable

Human Rights Watch known as the transfer “a shameful decision” that makes clear the Taliban’s lack of respect for “the fundamental rights of Afghans.”

A shameful transfer. The Taliban have banned ladies in Afghanistan from attending universities.

This is the most recent in a sequence of insurance policies which have restricted the essential rights of ladies and ladies. pic.twitter.com/qVPBNkxOib
— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) December 20, 2022

Foreign governments, together with the United States, have mentioned {that a} change in insurance policies on ladies’s training is required earlier than it might contemplate formally recognising the Taliban-run administration, which can be topic to heavy sanctions.

“The Taliban cannot expect to be a legitimate member of the international community until they respect the rights of all Afghans, especially the human rights and fundamental freedom of women and girls,” US Deputy UN Ambassador Robert Wood advised the council, describing the transfer as “absolutely indefensible.”

Former US envoy for Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, mentioned: “The announcement regarding women’s banishment from higher education by a faction within the Taliban is shocking and incomprehensible.”

Britain’s UN Ambassador Barbara Woodward mentioned the suspension was “another egregious curtailment of women’s rights and a deep and profound disappointment for every single female student.”

“It is also another step by the Taliban away from a self-reliant and prosperous Afghanistan,” she advised the council.

Read | ‘We are erased’: Afghan ladies demand motion at United Nations

‘BROKEN PROMISES’

In March, the Taliban drew criticism from many international governments and a few Afghans for making a U-turn on alerts that every one ladies’ excessive faculties could be opened.

UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric mentioned the transfer on Tuesday was “clearly another broken promise from the Taliban”.

“It’s another very troubling movement and it’s difficult to imagine how the country can develop and deal with all of the challenges that it has without active participation of women and the education of women,” he mentioned.

Shortly earlier than the announcement on universities, UN particular envoy for Afghanistan Roza Otunbayeva mentioned the closure of excessive faculties had “undermined” the Taliban administration’s relationship with the worldwide neighborhood and was “extremely unpopular among Afghans and even within the Taliban leadership”.

“As long as girls remain excluded from school and the de facto authorities continue to disregard other stated concerns of the international community, we remain at something of an impasse,” she mentioned.

One mom of a college pupil, who requested to not be named for safety causes, mentioned her daughter known as her in tears when she heard of the letter, fearing she might not proceed her medical research in Kabul.

“The pain that not only I … and [other] mothers have in our hearts, can not be described,” she mentioned.

“We are all feeling this pain.”

(With company enter)

Read | We hold naughty ladies at residence, say Taliban as they promise ‘excellent news quickly’

Published On:

Dec 21, 2022