Girls over the age of 12 and women in Afghanistan are unlikely to be allowed back to schools and universities for the foreseeable future, researchers have told Nature.
Three years after the Taliban seized power on 15 August 2021, there is no sign that the regime will lift these restrictions, which have been in place since December 2022 and do not exist in any other country the world.
Moreover, there is little evidence that any hoped-for talks between the Taliban and the international community on getting girls back into education are taking place. Women are also prohibited from certain jobs, going to gyms or hair salons, walking in parks or traveling without a male relative.
An entire generation’s talent is at risk of being lost, says Ian Bickford, president of the American University of Afghanistan (AUAF). The university closed its Kabul campuses in August 2021 and now provides online classes from Doha, Qatar. “The learning loss represented in three years of lost schooling is significant and will be difficult to surmount,” Bickford adds.
“Three years are a lot in education — it’s almost a bachelor’s degree,” says one female researcher we are calling Zahra, as she has asked Nature not to reveal her identity. Zahra teaches computer science at the AUAF and left Afghanistan for Europe in August 2021.
The number of students in the country’s 167 public and private universities and higher education institutes has collapsed from 430,000 to just 200,000 students since 2021, according to data published this week by the United Nations science and cultural organization UNESCO, based in Paris. More than 2.5 million girls are out of school, and if the education ban persists until 2030, that number could rise to more than 4 million, the UNESCO data show.
In 2023, Afghan women represented 6% of employment, down from 11% in the previous year, according to a report from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), based in New York city.
Stopping women from working, including some 2,500 female academics, cost the national economy the equivalent of up to US$1 billion in 2022, the UNDP report adds. Researchers and activists are calling the Taliban’s exclusion of women and girls from public life ‘gender apartheid’.
“The world is so quiet, this hurts the most,” says Zahra.
Talks but no talks
Back in 2021, a Taliban representative publicly stated that women would retain their right to education and work. In a press conference two days after the takeover, their spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said: “We are going to allow women to work and study … Women will be very active in society, but within the framework of Islam.” Yet, these promises have proved empty. “Each March, we had hope in our mind that maybe this year the schools would be open. And for continuously three years, our hope is being [let] down,” says Zahra.
The United Nations is hosting talks in Doha between the Taliban and representatives of more than 25 countries and international organizations. The Taliban did not permit Afghan women to attend the last meeting at the end of June and education was not on the official agenda. However, Rosemary DiCarlo, the UN’s representative at the talks, told reporters on 1 July that education was raised “a lot of times” at the Doha meeting and that the ban on girls and women is mentioned “in every single meeting” the UN has with Taliban leaders..
Nature asked representatives of several governments and international organizations whether there is a formal process, or specific talks between the international community and the Taliban on lifting the education ban. None responded to these requests except UNESCO, which said in a written statement: “UNESCO is not conducting any bilateral dialogue with the de facto authorities, considering that they are not recognized by the international community and that no interaction will be possible until the right to education for girls over 12 and women has been fully restored.”
18-year-old Afghan student, Marwa, staged a solo protest against the Taliban education ban outside Kabul University on 25 December 2022.Credit: AFP via Getty
According to researchers that Nature spoke to, the Taliban have mixed views on the continuing ban. Some in the Taliban oppose the ban, or are not implementing it completely. The health ministry, for example, permits women to study medicine and nursing in some areas in the country, Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO’s education officer who specializes in emergencies, said in a press briefing on 8 August.
According to one Afghan researcher currently in Japan who asked to remain anonymous, the Taliban will probably continue the ban at least until the international community, including the United Nations, recognizes them as the country’s legitimate government. The countries who already have official contacts with the Taliban include China, Japan, Russia, India and Pakistan.
Other researchers, however, argue that the Taliban have no intention of changing their position. There is no guarantee that, if the Taliban are recognized, girls will be allowed back in education, says Zahra. The Taliban previously ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, a period that also saw girls and women blocked from education and work.
“The Taliban haven’t been shown to be flexible to any changes in the past three years. So, everyone is trying to do something. But it seems like nothing works,” says Fereshta Abbasi, a London-based lawyer and researcher at Human Rights Watch (HRW), a non-governmental organization.
Sweeping changes
Meanwhile, the Taliban have been making sweeping changes to the education system. Female teachers have been replaced with men, who are often unqualified, according to a HRW report published last December. In some schools, science subjects such as biology and physics that were previously taught by female teachers are not being taught at all anymore, students told HRW researchers.
The Taliban have also been rewriting the curriculum of primary schools. Teaching of music, visual arts and cultural studies are to be replaced with agricultural and religious studies, according to a 78-page document by the Taliban’s education commission, written in 2020.
The document also criticized Afghanistan’s previous textbooks for containing images that promote foreign culture, describing democracy as positive and mentioning the names of female poets and non-Muslim scientists. The document, which listed 26 recommendations, also explained natural disasters as acts of divine will.
However, it is not clear whether these changes have been made. “We don’t really know to what extent that’s being implemented in all schools in the country,” says Abbasi.
Remarkable resilience
The restrictions are taking a heavy toll on women’s and girls’ mental health. One practitioner in Afghanistan told UN officials that 90% of students, young women and girls suffer from poor mental health. At the same time, Afghan women and girls continue to show remarkable resilience, say researchers.
The AUAF, for instance, now has more students enrolled in its online classes than it did when it was open to in-person learning, and most of its applicants are women, Bickford says. The private university now has about 1,100 Afghan students; 200 of whom receive in-person education at its Doha campus, while the remaining students, spread across some 20 countries, including Afghanistan, study online. “Young people in Afghanistan are still ambitious to learn and to pursue careers,” says Bickford.
Zahra says that her students are mostly women. “I’ve never seen my class where I would see only two boys, [and] the rest all female. It never happened before,” she says. However, she adds that online education is not a permanent solution, because not everywhere has Internet connectivity.
Nature approached the Taliban Ministry of Higher Education based in Kabul for comment. No response was received by the time this article was published.
