Taliban Restrict Girls From Studying Beyond Third Grade

In yet another violation of women’s rights, the Taliban has prohibited females above the age of ten from attending school in some provinces.

Officials from the Taliban-ruled Ministry of Education in Ghazni province have instructed the heads of schools and short-term training programmes that girls over the age of ten are not permitted to study in primary schools.

In some areas, the ‘Ministry for Preaching and Guidance’, formerly known as the Women’s Affairs Ministry, asked headmasters of girls’ schools to send home any female students who had completed third grade.

“We were told that girls who are tall and over 10 years old are not allowed to enter the school”, said a sixth-grade student from eastern Afghanistan.

Taliban leaders issued a ban on women attending educational institutions in December of last year, prompting considerable condemnation from foreign governments and the United Nations.

“You are all informed to immediately implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice”, Minister for Higher Education Neda Mohammad Nadeem said in a letter to all government and private universities last year.

The Taliban enforced the ban, saying that female students ignored a severe dress code and the requirement that they be accompanied to and from university campuses by a male relative.

The majority of colleges and universities had already instituted gender-specific entrances, classrooms, and restrictions limiting female instructors to older men or women.

The ban on schooling is one of the limitations imposed on women since the Taliban administration retook authority in August 2021. Women in the country are also prohibited from visiting parks, gyms, fairs, or salons, and are required to cover themselves in public. Many people have also been fired from government posts.

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