Afghan girls were excluded from secondary schools amid the Taliban’s takeover, as a statement by the group announcing classes resumption made no mention of female students or teachers.
Ten days after private universities resumed classes, with male and female students segregated using a curtain, the Taliban called on “all male teachers and students” to “attend their educational institutions.”
The Taliban captured Afghanistan’s capital Kabul on Sunday, August 15, 20 years after they were ousted from power.
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid promised that the group would respect women’s rights, as it strives to prove it has changed.
However, Afghan girls’ exclusion from secondary schools is raising fears that the group would return to its harsh reign of the late 1990s.
A decree issued by the new Taliban regime and published by the Ministry of Higher Education on the eve of the reopening of private universities in Afghanistan stated that young women enrolled in universities will also have to leave the classroom five minutes before the male students and wait in a waiting room until their male classmates leave the building.
On Friday, the Taliban appeared to have closed the government’s ministry of women’s affairs and replaced it with a department notorious for enforcing strict religious doctrine during their first rule two decades ago.
Several posts on social media showed women workers from the ministry protesting outside the building, saying they had lost their jobs.
In the past, when the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, enormous progress was noticed in terms of Afghanistan’s education enrolments and literacy rates -especially for girls and women.
The number of girls in primary schools increased from almost zero to 2.5 million, while the female literacy rate nearly doubled in a decade to 30%, according to BBC news.
Despite promises that they would rule more moderately this time around, the Taliban have yet to allow women to return to work, and introduced rules for their attire at university.
The new Taliban government announced two weeks ago, had no female members, or even a ministry to represent their interests.
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