Are Women Truly Treated As Second-class Citizens In Afghanistan? -

Kabul University’s new Taliban-designated chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat has announced on Monday September 27 that, women will no longer be allowed to attend classes or work at the institution until an Islamic environment is created. This move is to stop Afghan women from public life.

According to Ashraf Ghairat, as long as real or true Islamic environment isn’t accommodated, women won’t be permitted to go to colleges or even work. The college was now working out a plan to entertain teaching female students.

The chancellor further said, because of deficiency of female teachers, his outfit is chipping away at an arrangement for male teachers to have the option to teach female students from behind a curtain in the study hall.

That way an Islamic environment would be made for the female students to get educated. Meanwhile, Chancellor Mohammad Ashraf Ghairat’s appointment as Kabul University’s chancellor by the Taliban was met with a tempest of criticisms over his lack of certifications.

But, Ashraf Ghairat thinks he is completely qualified to hold this seat, consequently has spread out his vision for the institution, saying Kabul University’s focus is geared towards becoming a center for “all real Muslims all throughout the world to accumulate, research and study” and to “Islamicize the advanced science.”

The Taliban, who ruled over Afghanistan from 1996 until 2001 but were forced from power after a US-led invasion, have historically treated women as second-class citizens, subjecting them to violence, forced marriages and a near-invisible presence in the country.

The absence of any female representatives from their newly-formed interim government and an almost overnight disappearance of women from the country’s streets has led to major worries about what will happen next for half of its population.

Militants have in some instances ordered women to leave their workplaces, and when a group of women protested the announcement of the all-male government in Kabul, Taliban fighters beat them with whips and sticks.

Women have so far been allowed to continue their university education. But the Taliban has mandated the segregation of genders in classrooms and said female students, lecturers and employees must wear hijabs in accordance with the group’s interpretation of Sharia law.