BADGHIS, Jan 30 (Afghanistan Women’s News Agency) – The university gates have been closed to female students in Afghanistan for 407 days. A year ago, on the 22nd of December, 2022, the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education issued a statement prohibiting female students from attending universities. Now, some female students in the province of Badghis […]
BADGHIS, Jan 30 (Afghanistan Women’s News Agency) – The university gates have been closed to female students in Afghanistan for 407 days. A year ago, on the 22nd of December, 2022, the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education issued a statement prohibiting female students from attending universities.
Now, some female students in the province of Badghis state that they have been deprived of their studies for over a year and they urge the authorities to consider their future and reopen the university gates.
Manizha Samadi, a female student in Badghis province studying economics, has been unable to continue her studies in this field from the third year onwards due to the imposed restrictions.
She says: “I was in my third year of university, studying economics, but unfortunately, it has been over a year since I have been unable to attend university, and like hundreds of other female students, I have been confined to my home. I urge the authorities to reopen the university gates to female students so that we can also pursue our studies like the male students.”
Masouma Afzali, another university female student in Badghis province, has turned to the art of tailoring after the closure of universities, contrary to her previous studies in the faculty of English Literature.
She expresses, “I had a great fondness for English literature and aspired to become a skilled professor and writer in my field in the future, but unfortunately, we are unable to attend university. Our education has been left incomplete and our future is uncertain. I hope that we will be able to attend university again in the future and achieve our goals as we did in the past.”
In Afghanistan, the academic fate of female students has remained ambiguous due to the political and social upheavals, and it is uncertain when the gates of universities will reopen for them. Following the restrictions on the educational rights of girls, many of them have not resigned themselves to seclusion and have engaged in various professions and occupations to secure a source of income for themselves at least in the future.
