Afghan women not barred from Univ; but must attend classes separately: Report

Female students in Afghanistan will not be barred from attending university but men and women will be segregated when classes in university resume on October 9.

This was confirmed by an official in the Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education, said a Bloomberg report. The report quoted Mohammad Edris, assistant secretary to the minister of higher education, from Kabul as saying on Saturday (October 2) that men and women will get back to University to attend classes separately.

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Yet, this seemed slightly contrary to what Bilal Karimi — the Taliban’s deputy spokesman — has said. He told the media that women will only be allowed to attend university after a “pure Islamic environment” was established in the educational institutions. Women will not be stopped from joining university.

But what goes into making a pure Islamic environment remained a mystery as it was not spelt out. The Bloomberg report pointed out that this stance of Taliban seemed to be in sync with a tweet published last week on Twitter. According to media reports, the Twitter account had said female students won’t return to Kabul University until “a real Islamic environment” is provided for all.

However, the authorities have said that this account was fake. Karimi also told Bloomberg that the Twitter account didn’t represent Ghairat and “we don’t know who runs it.”