Five separate institutions across Afghanistan have confirmed that the Taliban had instructed them to close until further notice, with videos shared online showing students crying at the news.
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However, the closure appears to be in line with the group’s wider policy on female education, which has seen teenage girls unable to access secondary and higher education since August 2021.
The Taliban have repeatedly promised they would be readmitted to school once a number of issues were resolved - including ensuring the curriculum was “Islamic”. This has yet to happen.
One of the few avenues still open to women seeking education was through the country’s further education colleges, where they could learn to be nurses or midwives.
Midwifery and nursing are also one of the only careers women can pursue under the Taliban government’s restrictions on women - a vital one, as male medics are not allowed to treat women unless a male guardian is present.
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In videos sent to the BBC from other training colleges, trainees can be heard weeping.
“Standing here and crying won’t help,” a student tells a group of women in one video. “The Vice and Virtue officials [who enforce Taliban rules] are nearby, and I don’t want anything bad to happen to any of you.”
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Another student revealed they “were only given time to grab our bags and leave the classrooms”.
“They even told us not to stand in the courtyard because the Taliban could arrive at any moment, and something might happen. Everyone was terrified,” she said. “For many of us, attending classes was a small glimmer of hope after long periods of unemployment, depression, and isolation at home.”
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It’s not even extreme; that applies to most of their decisions, but not this one, which literally makes no sense. The 100% Islamic thing to do even if you don’t care about women’s lives or autonomy or any of that would be to encourage women to become doctors so they can treat other women and minimize haram mixing between genders. I mean they haven’t exactly been following Islam up to this point but this time it’s particularly egregious because it crosses from “Islam doesn’t tell you/allow you to do that what the fuck are you doing” to “Islam explicitly tells you not to do this what the fuck are you doing”.
Source: Am Muslim, up until now I could at least comprehend most of their decisions (in the sense that I was familiar with the thought process that lead to them because misogyny is everywhere around here; I obviously don’t condone any of it), but now I’m as flabbergasted as everyone else.
Is this like some weird Pashtun cultural thing?
I seriously have no idea.