They cry and comfort each other outside a Kabul University campus. There are hundreds of Afghan women who today have received yet another ban on a normal life. The police prevented some women from entering, after what was a bolt from the blue: the immediate ban on entering the universities prevented some even from completing the work they were doing. Rahimullah Nadeem, a spokesman for Kabul University, confirmed that classes for female students were halted while the last four graduation ceremonies were taking place.
After the one at school, the Taliban’s grip now affects the University and in general the right of women to education in what appears to be gender discrimination. Unity and Solidarity of Afghanistan Women activists gathered outside the private Edrak University in Kabul chanted slogans such as “Education cannot be a political fact!”. “Once again the university is forbidden for women, we don’t want to be eliminated!”
The news went around the world outraging the international democratic community and not only the issue could land on the agenda G7 of tomorrow. She was the foreign minister Annalena Baerbock to put forward the proposal: “By destroying the future of girls and women in Afghanistan, the Taliban have decided to destroy the future of their own country. I will put the issue on the agenda of the G7 tomorrow”, wrote the German minister on twitter , whose country holds the presidency of the G7 until the end of the year.
“The Taliban can try to make women invisible, but they won’t succeed: the world is watching us” stated German policy.
The Taliban ban does not distinguish between private or public universities, the authority has not given a reason or reacted to the fierce and swift global condemnation, while the press and students have been prevented from taking pictures, filming and protesting. According to inside sources, the decision to ban women from universities was probably taken by a handful of high-level Taliban figures, among which the leader Hibatullah Akhunzadadirectly to Kandahar, birthplace of the Taliban movement. In Kabul, where the ministers of justice, higher education and the so-called ministry of “virtue and vice” reside, they would only have been informed.
The move will certainly hurt the Taliban’s efforts to gain international recognition for their government and help from potential lenders at a time when Afghanistan is in a humanitarian crisis worsening and could in fact isolate the country even more. Some analysts think that the Taliban’s treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan may constitute a crime against humanity if the Taliban government is investigated and prosecuted under international law and for gender persecution.
To show open opposition there are countries like the Turkey with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s spokesman Ibrahim Kalin finalizing the ban “against the spirit of Islam”. “There is no place in religion for this kind of prohibition,” Erdogan’s spokesman wrote on Twitter.
“We are saddened and worried by the ban on education imposed on female students in Afghanistan”, also announced the Turkish Foreign Ministry in a statement in which it expressed “the expectation that the decision will be reviewed as soon as possible”, something even expressed by the Qatar and from Pakistanboth Muslim countries.
Qatar, a veteran of the World Cup, would like to regain credibility after recent scandals, last year it played a key role in facilitating negotiations that led to the withdrawal of US forces from Afghanistan. She called on the “Afghan interim government” to review the ban in line with Islam’s teachings on women’s education. According to neighboring Pakistan, its position on the issue of women’s education has been “clear and consistent”.
The United States with the US Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken they point out that no other country in the world prevents women and girls from getting an education. “This decision will have consequences,” she says.
The promise the Taliban made to the world when they returned to government in August 2021 has not been kept: the rights of women and minorities have been trampled on. Women were banned from middle and high schools, labor camps, parks and gymnasiums. And, as in Iran, they have ordered them to wear clothes that cover them from head to toe, effectively preventing the women from living a normal life.
Afghanistan, women in protest over the ban on the University
