-
December 22, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Hill: Abandoned by the world, Afghanistan’s youth are trapped in a nightmare. They grew up under two decades of American influence, dreaming of a future where they could pursue their education. But the Taliban have snatched away their dreams, turning education into a joke.Education is like a window to the world, as my grandfather used to say. A window that lets you breathe in the wisdom of others and exhale yours to them. It sets you free. Full news...
-
December 12, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CBS News: The U.S. Treasury announced new sanctions over the weekend against two Taliban regime officials in Afghanistan, accusing the men of roles in the systemic “repression of women and girls."”p The Treasury specifically noted the Taliban’s ban on girls attending school beyond the sixth grade as “severe and pervasive discrimination”. ut while the impact on Afghan women and girls of the Taliban’s draconian crackdown on education has been well documented, a report from the New York-based organization Human Rights Watch warns that the Islamic fundamentalists’ approach to schooling is “causing irreversible damage to the Afghan education system for boys as well as girls.” Full news...
-
December 10, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ABC News: The Taliban must embrace and uphold human rights obligations in Afghanistan, the U.N. mission in the country said Sunday on Human Rights Day and the 75th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have erased basic rights and freedoms, with women and girls deeply affected. They are excluded from most public spaces and daily life, and the restrictions have sparked global condemnation. Full news...
-
December 6, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA News: The Taliban’s “abusive” educational policies are harming boys as well as girls in Afghanistan, according to a Human Rights Watch report published Wednesday. The Taliban have been globally condemned for banning girls and women from secondary school and university, but the rights group says there has been less attention to the deep harm inflicted on boys’ education. The departure of qualified teachers including women, regressive curriculum changes and the increase in corporal punishment have led to greater fear of going to school and falling attendance. Full news...
-
September 26, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Rukhshana: Fears are growing of the Taliban’s moves to expand extremist religious schools in Afghanistan, with more buildings allegedly being claimed for this purpose.Since taking power in Afghanistan over two years ago, the Taliban have been slowly building more religious schools across the country.Two buildings of the Herat teacher training center were turned into jihadist schools in April. Before the Taliban takeover in August 2021, more than four thousand men and women had been studying teaching in the center. Full news...
-
July 8, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
UNICEF: An estimated 3.7 million children are out-of-school in Afghanistan. 60 per cent of girls and 46 per cent of boys of primary school age are currently not attending any level of education in Afghanistan. Even when children are enrolled in school, they are not always learning. Years of previous conflict, coupled with poor infrastructure, have made some schools unsafe for children. Many public schools lack adequate classrooms, qualified teachers, school supplies, and places where children can wash their hands. Full news...
-
July 8, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: Afghanistan’s primary mental health facility in Kabul has filled with patients who say they are experiencing a different kind of suffering, he said. With the Taliban leadership severely restricting female education and work, there are mounting concerns about the mental health of girls and women. The restrictions and “sudden changes,” said Azim, appear to be at the root of the trauma suffered by most women and girls now seeking help at this hospital. Full news...
-
April 6, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Afghanistan International: The Taliban’s Ministry of Education has introduced new uniforms for male and female schoolchildren in Afghanistan. According to the Taliban’s "Uniform Bill", boys should wear Shalwar Kameez and girls should wear skirts, scarves, and face masks. The Taliban has declared that wearing the new uniform is mandatory in public and private schools. The Taliban has introduced these uniforms for female students even though girls’ schools have been closed and millions of female students are deprived of education. Full news...
-
April 3, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
8am: Local sources in Panjshir province report that Taliban have exploded the boys’ high school building “Dahan-Riyot” in the Khinj district of this province. Sources told Hasht-e Subh that Taliban destroyed the school with a mine explosion around 9:00 am on Monday. Full news...
-
March 26, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Radio Liberty: At least 20 Afghan women marched in the capital, Kabul, on March 26 to demand the right to education for women and girls before being rounded up by a Taliban patrol. The demonstration comes amid UN and other international condemnation over ongoing strictures under the Taliban-led government to keep women and girls out of schools, jobs, media, and other aspects of life since the hard-line militant group took power after U.S.-led international forces left in 2021. Full news...
-
March 23, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Nimrokh: As Afghanistan’s new academic year gets underway with the ringing of school bells, nearly half of the country’s students are denied the right to education. Despite the significance of Hamal 03 (March 23) as Afghanistan’s Education Day, the Taliban marked the start of the new school year on Hamal 01 (March 21) with a male-only ceremony at Amani High School in Kabul. No female teacher or student was allowed to attend the ceremony. Full news...
-
February 9, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: It is six weeks since the Taliban closed the door on girls’ education across Afghanistan and Zeina’s last vestiges of hope for her future died. A very different kind of life now lies ahead for the 20-year-old, a life of domestic drudgery, boredom and seclusion that she has no power to change. Since the Taliban took control in August 2021, Zeina had managed to convince her frightened family to let her stay at school. She held on to the belief that she would somehow find a way to finish her education and achieve her dream of getting a master’s in medicine. This dream has now ended. Full news...
-
January 28, 2023 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA: ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban have indefinitely barred girls from taking private university entrance exams, tightening their ban on women’s education in the country. Ziaullah Hashmi, a spokesperson for the Taliban higher education ministry, Saturday confirmed to VOA they had sent out a letter to private Afghan universities across the country ordering them not to enroll female students for the upcoming spring semester. Full news...
-
December 25, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN:The Taliban administration on Saturday ordered all local and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to stop their female employees from coming to work, according to a letter by the Ministry of Economy sent to all licensed NGOs. Non-compliance will result in the licenses of said NGOs being revoked, the ministry said. Non-compliance will result in revoking the licenses of said NGOs, the ministry said. Full news...
-
December 21, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have ordered an indefinite ban on university education for the country’s women, the ministry of higher education said in a letter issued to all government and private universities. “You all are informed to implement the mentioned order of suspending education of females until further notice,” said the letter signed by the minister for higher education, Neda Mohammad Nadeem. Full news...
- The Acting Minister of Education of the Taliban called girls going to school “Revelry and obscenity”December 1, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Etilaat-e-Rooz: the Acting Minister of Higher Education of the Taliban, called girls going to school an alien culture and said that this culture was brought into the country by Amanullah Khan. In a video published on social networks, he considers girls going to school as a version of “Revelry and obscenity”. Full news...
-
November 3, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Khaama Press: According to sources, the Taliban arrested women journalists and activists in Kabul, including Zarifa Yaqoubi, one of the demonstrators who attended a press conference announcing the formation of the Afghan Women’s Movement for Equality, on Thursday, November 3. The gun-wielding Taliban forces including women police officers invaded a women’s press conference held in Dasht-e-Barchi, a Hazara neighborhood in west Kabul, arbitrarily arresting women activists, journalists, and their male colleagues, sources told Khaama Press. Full news...
-
October 30, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
8am: A number of female students in Badakhshan protested on Sunday morning (October 30th) after they were prevented from entering the university campus by the Taliban. The Taliban did not allow these students to enter Badakhshan University because they did not wear burqas and wore local clothes. Full news...
-
October 17, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
VOA: The Taliban have imposed yet more restrictions on girls’ education in Afghanistan as the group barred girls from choosing certain subjects in the country’s national university entrance exam this year. The form given to female students at the exam, received by the VOA Afghanistan Service, shows that female students did not have the option of choosing civil engineering, journalism, veterinary, agriculture and geology in this year’s exam held at the beginning of this month. Full news...
-
October 6, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
OCHA: People in Afghanistan are no strangers to hardships, having endured 40 years of conflict, poverty, displacement, drought and the COVID-19 pandemic. The country is now also facing a failing health system and an economy on the brink of collapse. Even before the Taliban entered the capital, Kabul, on 15 August, the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan was one of the worst in the world. Nearly half of the country’s 40 million people, or 18.4 million people, already needed humanitarian assistance. One in three Afghans faces food insecurity, and more than half of all children under age 5 are likely to face acute malnutrition. Full news...
-
October 5, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Guardian: Last week, a suicide bomber killed at least 53 people – mostly girls from the minority Hazara ethnic group – outside an education centre in Kabul. Here, relatives and friends of four young women who died remember their loved ones. Full news...
-
September 30, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Al Jazeera : “Students were preparing for an exam when a suicide bomber struck at this educational centre. Unfortunately, 19 people have been martyred and 27 others wounded,” he said. Videos posted online and photos published by local media showed bloodied victims being carried away from the scene. Full news...
-
September 10, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
ANI: Several human rights and education activists had urged world leaders in an open letter recently to mount diplomatic pressure on the Taliban to reopen secondary schools for girls in the war-torn country as the Taliban’s brutal regime in Afghanistan will soon complete a year in August. Young girls and women have been compromising with their aspirations as it has been almost 300 days since their development has been distorted, the activists said adding, that if this situation persists, their aims and hopes will suffer greatly, reported Khaama Press. Full news...
-
August 9, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
AFP: Nafeesa has discovered a great place to hide her schoolbooks from the prying eyes of her disapproving Taliban brother -- the kitchen, where Afghan men rarely venture. Hundreds of thousands of girls and young women like Nafeesa have been deprived of the chance of education since the Taliban returned to power a year ago, but their thirst for learning has not lessened. Full news...
-
July 26, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: The lives of women and girls in Afghanistan are being devastated by the Taliban’s crackdown on their human rights, Amnesty International said in a new report published today. Since they took control of the country in August 2021, the Taliban have violated women’s and girls’ rights to education, work and free movement; decimated the system of protection and support for those fleeing domestic violence; detained women and girls for minor violations of discriminatory rules; and contributed to a surge in the rates of child, early and forced marriage in Afghanistan. Full news...
-
May 19, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
CNN: Sirajudin Haqqani, a secretive Taliban leader, spoke to CNN in an on-camera interview aired Tuesday. He said "good news" is in store for Afghan girls who want to attend secondary school. At the same time, he joked that the Taliban wants to “keep naughty women at home.” When asked to clarify his comment, Haqqani said: “By saying naughty women, it was a joke referring to those naughty women who are controlled by some other sides to bring the current government into question.” Full news...
-
May 17, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
BBC: Hidden away in a residential neighbourhood is one of Afghanistan’s new “secret” schools - a small but powerful act of defiance against the Taliban.Around a dozen teenage girls are attending a maths class. “We know about the threats and we worry about them,” the sole teacher tells us, but she adds, girls’ education is worth “any risk”. Full news...
-
April 20, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Washington Post: KABUL — At least six people were killed and 11 injured by two explosions Tuesday morning outside a large public school in western Kabul, police and school officials said. The death toll was expected to climb, as witnesses and survivors said scores of people had been injured and taken to nearby hospitals. The back-to-back blasts struck at the heart of the capital’s minority Shiite Hazara community, just outside the prominent Abdul Rahman Shahid school, where dozens of students were leaving after morning classes. Full news...
-
April 19, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
Amnesty International: Responding to the deaths of at least six people and the injury of 11 others, including children, following bomb blasts in schools in predominantly Hazara Shiite communities in Kabul today, Samira Hamidi, Amnesty International’s South Asia Campaigner, said:“These reprehensible attacks on schools highlight the violence that Afghan people continue to face in their daily lives. It also shows that the Taliban, as the de-facto authorities, are failing to protect civilians, especially those from ethnic and religious minority groups, from harm. Full news...
-
April 13, 2022 :: RSS :: Print :: Email
The Print: Even as Afghanistan’s Islamic Emirate continues to deny education to girls beyond the sixth grade, more than two dozen top Taliban leaders are educating their daughters at schools in Doha, Peshawar and Karachi, sources familiar with the movement have told ThePrint.The leaders include Health Minister Qalandar Ebad, Deputy Foreign Minister Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, and spokesperson Suhail Shaheen. Full news...