Taliban conditions for Afghan women if they want to go to college

September 7, 2021 – 12:21 p.m.

Afghan students will not be allowed to mingle with men in classrooms and must wear a black abbey and a niqab to cover their faces, according to a decree issued by the Taliban regime the day before private universities reopened.

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In addition, women enrolled in these establishments must leave class five minutes before the men and wait in a room until the latter have left the building, said the decree, dated Saturday and published by the Ministry of Education Superior.

Universities, meanwhile, must hire professors for female students or try to hire “senior professors” whose morality has been proven, the decree said.

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During the first term of the Islamist movement (1996-2001) the ban on mixed classes prevented almost all women from studying. At that time, the use of the burqa was mandatory, the veil completely covers the body, from head to toe, with a net at eye level. The abbey, which will have to be worn by private school students, is a long veil that covers the whole body. The niqab, on the other hand, covers the face but leaves the eyes in sight.

The international community is waiting to see how the Taliban treat women’s rights, following their takeover on August 15. Since then, the Islamist movement has sought to offer a more moderate temperament.

As for the fact that mixed classes are banned, “it will be complicated from a practical point of view, we do not have enough teachers or enough classrooms to separate girls” from boys, a teacher told AFP university student, who requested anonymity. “But the fact that they allow girls to go to school and college is, in itself, an important and positive step,” she added.

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Some universities obeyed the order, such as Ibn-i Sina’s Faculty of Economics, which installed curtains to separate men from women. “They imposed the decision on us, we could not oppose it,” university spokesman Jalil Tadjil told AFP. But very few students came on Monday “because of uncertainty,” he added. Before the Taliban returned to power, Afghan students were able to attend mixed classes and courses taught by men.

Empty universities

Kabul’s private universities were virtually empty on Monday after the Taliban imposed sex segregation in classrooms and the wearing of the niqab for women. “There is no one, there are no students,” the guards of two establishments told AFP in the morning. Two universities noted a very low presence.

“Most of our students did not come,” says Reza Ramazan, a professor of computer science at Gharjistan University in the Afghan capital, Kabul. “We don’t even know if they are still in the country,” he adds. Tens of thousands of Afghans, mostly qualified, fled the country after the Taliban took power on August 15. The others “are afraid of the Taliban and do not know what awaits them in the future.”

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The corridors of Gharjistan University in Kabul are also almost empty. “Of our thousand students, less than 200 came today,” Noor Ali Rahmani, the school’s director, told AFP. On Sunday, during a meeting at the ministry, his university clearly expressed its disagreement with the Taliban, he says. “We said we would not accept [el nicab] because it’s too hard to impose, our students wear a handkerchief. We also told them that this was not written in the Qur’an. “