Taliban regime announces women will have to study at university completely separate from men

Afghan women will be able to study at university but must do so completely separate from men, the Taliban regime announced on Sunday., which this week announced the formation of a new interim government made up entirely of fundamentalists and without women.

Insurgents argue that they are not the same as they were two decades ago, when her regime was characterized by the relegation of housewives and its conservative interpretation of IslamBut the international community has shown its concern and remains vigilant.

Over the past two decades, students of both sexes have shared unhindered classrooms in Afghan universities., although primary and secondary education centers continue to separate students by gender.

A situation which the Taliban, who seized power in Kabul on August 15, decided to put an end to.

“Male and female students will continue their classes without a common education” in a “safe study environment” based on Sharia or Islamic law, the Minister of Higher Education said, Abdul Baqi Haqqani, during a press conference.

The minister said that preparations for the implementation of the measure “are underway” and “will be completed before the start of courses in universities” in the coming days.

Haqqani justified this decision by stating that joint education prevents women from concentrating on their studies, is “contrary to Islam and Afghan cultural values” and was requested by teachers and students unions.

Afghan students will only be able to take courses taught by female teachers, under the new rules of the Taliban, who are developing a new higher education program adapted “to Islam and Afghan culture”.

Taliban seek complete segregation between the two sexesAlthough Haqqani said 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 footage of a college classroom with a handful of students separated by gender: women on the left and men on the right, separated by a cloth.

The announcement was seen by women’s rights activists as another example of the Taliban imposing their conservative worldview and Islam by force. “This decision shows the animosity of the Taliban against the education of women, whom they want to deprive of being able to study,” he lamented to the agency. EFE Masouda Kohistan.

The activist claimed that the gender segregation of teachers as well will negatively affect the quality of education for women. “For example, in medical schools, the most experienced teachers are men, even in maternity hospitals”he commented.

The activist too Zarlasht Mayar asserted that it is one more step for fundamentalists to relegate women to the background: “Gender should not be a pretext to stand in the way of education, class segregation is a start to isolate women from society, and the Taliban will take more action to prevent them from entering certain professions.

The international community has repeatedly expressed concern about possible human rights violations by the Taliban, and in particular the future of women in Afghanistan.

The lack of diversity in the interim government announced this week, along with the absence of women, images of journalists tortured by the Taliban and the near-total ban on protests have fueled those fears.

This Sunday, the famous doctor Fahima Rahmati, director of an NGO in southern Afghanistan, denounced that the Taliban raided her home and detained her three brothers, which caused a strong indignation in the Asian country.

“The Taliban broke into 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 guns or government workers in our house, ”the director of the Heela foundation said in a shared video message. on his Facebook page.

Rahmati has worked for years in the southern province of Kandahar, particularly helping widows and those displaced by decades of fighting in Afghanistan, and He accused the Taliban of looking for fallen officials to kill them.

“When they find an official, they kill him, but I do not work for the government, I am in charge of a charity”, he defended.

With information from the EFE

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