Afghan women can study at university but will have to do so completely separate from men, the Taliban said on Sunday, announcing a new interim government this week made up solely of fundamentalists and no women.
The insurgents maintain that they are not the same as two decades ago, when their regime was characterized by relegating women to the home and by its conservative interpretation of Islam, but the international community has shown its concern and remains vigilant.
END OF TWO DECADES OF JOINT EDUCATION
Over the past two decades, students of both sexes have shared classrooms at Afghan universities without hindrance, although primary and secondary schools continue to segregate students by sex.
A situation that the Taliban, who seized power in Kabul on August 15, have decided to end.
Students “men and women will continue their classes without joint education” in a “safe study environment” based on sharia or Islamic law, Higher Education Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani said at a press.
The minister has stated that preparations to implement the measure “are underway” and “will be completed before courses in universities begin” in the coming days.
Haqqani justified the measure by stating that joint education prevents women from concentrating on their studies, is “contrary to Islam and Afghan cultural values” and had been called for by teachers ’and students’ unions.
Afghan students will only be able to attend courses taught by teachers, according to the new Taliban rules, which are developing a new curriculum for higher education that is “adapted to Islam and Afghan culture”.
The Taliban are seeking total segregation between the two sexes, although Haqqani claimed that as a last resort the centers will be able to separate men and women with a curtain.
Some centers have already implemented this measure, and local media Ariana News showed images of a university classroom with a handful of students segregated by sex: women on the left and men on the right, divided by a canvas.
ACTIVISTS ATTACK SEX SEGREGATION
The announcement has been seen by women’s rights activists as another example of the Taliban imposing their conservative worldview and Islam by force.
“This decision demonstrates the Taliban’s animosity against the education of women, whom they want to deprive of being able to study,” Masouda Kohistani told Efe.
The activist stated that gender segregation also of teachers will negatively affect the quality of women’s education.
“For example, in medical universities the professors with the most professional experience are men, even in the maternity department,” she said.
Also activist Zarlasht Mayar told Efe that this is another step for fundamentalists to relegate women to the background.
“Gender should not be a pretext to hinder education, class segregation is a beginning to isolate women from society and the Taliban will take more measures to prevent them from pursuing certain professions,” she said.
CONCERN FOR HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS
The international community has repeatedly expressed concern about possible human rights violations by the Taliban, and especially about the future of women in Afghanistan.
The lack of diversity in the interim government announced this week, as well as the lack of presence of women, images of journalists tortured by the Taliban and the almost total ban on demonstrations have fueled these fears.
This Sunday, the well-known Dr. Fahima Rahmati, director of an NGO in southern Afghanistan, denounced that the Taliban stormed her home and arrested her three brothers, causing outrage in the Asian country.
“The Taliban forcibly entered our house in the middle of the night. They could have knocked on the door if they needed to do a check, there are no weapons or government employees in our house,” the director of the Heela Foundation said in a message in shared video on their Facebook page.
Rahmati has been working for years in the southern province of Kandahar, helping especially widows and people displaced by decades of clashes in Afghanistan, and has accused the Taliban of looking for deposed government employees to kill them.
“When they find an official, they kill him, but I don’t work for the Government, I am in charge of a charity,” he defended himself.