Afghan women demonstrate outside Kabul University

• Afghan women gathered outside Kabul University to protest the ruling Taliban’s ban on female.
• A viral video shows a group of girls sitting on the ground outside Kabul University.
• The ban has sparked outrage, with girls expressing their devastation

On Monday, young Afghan women gathered outside Kabul University to protest the ruling Taliban’s ban on female education, as their male counterparts returned to school for a new academic year and the United Nations heard the restriction may amount to a crime against humanity.

A viral video shows a group of girls sitting on the ground outside Kabul University, reading their books.

Last December, the Taliban barred women from attending university, nine months after the Islamist group barred girls from returning to secondary schools as part of a brutal crackdown on women’s rights since seizing power in 2021.

On Monday, a Taliban Ministry of Higher Education spokesperson announced the start of classes in several provinces, claiming that “all teachers and students attended their lessons in a safe and calm atmosphere.”

Images from Kabul universities show classrooms full of male students and teachers; images of female students on a banner at one private university had been spray painted over.

“We are happy that the university has started; But I am sad that our sisters cannot attend universities”, a male student named Nasir told independent Afghan News on Monday seized power in 2021.

The Taliban previously claimed that the university ban was imposed because women did not follow Islamic dress rules and other “Islamic values,” citing female students who travelled without a male guardian. Interaction between male and female students was prohibited under Sharia law.

The ban has sparked outrage, with girls expressing their devastation and feeling robbed of their future.

Human rights crisis: UN report

Richard Bennett, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, presented a report to the Human Rights Council in Geneva on Monday, claiming that the Taliban’s ban on female education “may amount to gender persecution, a crime against humanity.”

Other complicating crises mentioned in the report include the rise in forced and child marriages, sexual abuse and assault, the ban on women entering other public spaces such as parks and gyms, and other restrictions limiting women’s ability to work and travel independently.

These bans “deepen existing flagrant violations of women’s human rights, already among the most draconian in the world,” the report said.

The Taliban’s return to power coincided with a worsening humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, exacerbating long-standing problems. Following the takeover, the US and its allies froze approximately $7 billion of the country’s foreign reserves and cut off international funding, crippling an economy that is heavily reliant on foreign aid.

Already scarce humanitarian aid was exacerbated in December when the Taliban announced a ban on female NGO workers, prompting multiple major international aid organisations to suspend operations in the country.

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