By Muzhdan Mohammadi
Nazanin* never complained about having to walk up the freezing slopes of Afghanistan’s snow-covered Hindu Kush mountains by her home to get a strong internet signal for her online English course. Her efforts felt especially worthwhile after she won a university scholarship abroad.
But just over two years later, that hard-fought opportunity has been abruptly cut short without warning.
Nazanin and more than 80 other Afghan women are being forced to leave their studies in Oman and return to Afghanistan where they are banned from continuing their education and in most cases forbidden from working in their chosen pursuits.
In an email to the 82 scholarship recipients earlier this month, their sudden change of fate is explained as stemming from United States President Donald Trump’s decision to strip funding from the US Agency for International Development (USAID).
“We regret to inform you that the Women’s Scholarship Endowment has been discontinued due to changes in the foreign policy priorities of the United States government and the termination of similar programs by USAID and the US Department of State,” the email stated.
The students, who had all managed to secure admission to the Middle East College in Muscat with great difficulty after the Taliban blocked education to girls above grade 6, were shocked upon hearing this decision.
“We will never forget this day when, after two and a half years of waiting, when we had hope for the future, everything turned to smoke in a single night,” Nazanin said.
“The future of Afghan girls is at risk”
Nazanin’s scholarship acceptance letter to study medical science arrived August 21, 2022, under the support of the Women’s Scholarship Endowment (WSE) and she completed her first semester in Kabul.
The WSE scholarships were funded by USAID to provide educational opportunities for female students in Afghanistan.
However, following the directive from the Taliban to close Afghanistan’s universities to female students, the organization decided to find a way for the students to pursue their education abroad.
The process of admission and transferring Afghan female students to the Middle East College in Oman took about two painstaking years. In September 2024, the 82 students were secretly transferred from Afghanistan to Pakistan and then on to Oman.
Nazanin grew up in a society with traditional views, where a girl’s efforts to pursue education were often seen as “insanity” and “futile.” However, she fought against this mindset.
“Education in a traditional society with rigid religious views is very difficult for women. Especially when, as a girl, we weren’t allowed to leave the house, and those around us considered our efforts to obtain a scholarship as pointless and insane,” Nazanin said.
“Yet, we made it here and remained hopeful that we could build a future for ourselves.”
She said with the cancellation of her scholarship, her future and that of the 81 other students, is now “at risk of destruction.”
“The news we’ve received is very heartbreaking. Now we don’t know what to do, where to go, or which door to knock on.”
Zahra* studied computer science for one semester at the private Ghalib University in Herat and later became one of the 82 girls in Oman with the WSE scholarship.
The 24-year-old said the scholarship covered the girls’ educational expenses, university tuition, travel costs, and other related expenses.
“Most of the time, I struggled to pay for my travel expenses and would skip lunch to cover the cost of the journey,” Zahra said.
Part of the process of gaining the scholarship abroad meant collecting all the necessary documentation, including having educational documents certified by the Taliban’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and obtaining an electronic passport.
“I made my way to Kabul alone from the province, and since I didn’t have a mahram [male chaperone], I stayed among the women. It took a month to receive the Ministry of Foreign Affairs approval,” Zahra said.
“We spent five months [in Oman] on false hopes, and now they say they will send us back to Afghanistan, even though they initially warned us that we were on the Taliban’s blacklist and that we weren’t allowed to travel to Afghanistan during the holidays.”
The Taliban has prohibited women from traveling alone outside of Afghanistan. As a result, traveling without a male guardian causes numerous difficulties for women.
Another student told Rukhshana Media that all 82 female students left Afghanistan with a male family member accompanying them to Islamabad in Pakistan before they went to Oman.
Now, as they are set to be forcibly returned to Afghanistan alone, they face a serious threat from the Taliban, as the Taliban’s government institutions have access to all their personal information.
Another student in the cohort Tayeba* said that after arriving at the college, they were asked to register their educational documents at the Afghan embassy in Oman, so their personal information is likely now in the hands of the Taliban.
“At the time, we didn’t think about the risks of registering our documents, but now we don’t know what the future holds for us with the forced return to Afghanistan,” Tayeba, 25, said.
“When we were leaving Afghanistan, the Taliban detained a girl who was planning to travel by air at Kabul airport and interrogated her for three hours.”
The Masters of Engineering student said the scholarship cancellation and the forced return to Taliban rule is the end of her only chance to complete her education and build a future for herself.
“The fear of being forcibly returned to Afghanistan and the fact that this decision will destroy our educational future has made us spend our nights in stress and anxiety,” Tayeba said.
She said that her family had a gendered view of her chosen field, considering it “only for boys” and had opposed her pursuing it. She had defied them and excelled, but now faces all of it being for nothing.
Nazanin, Zahra, and Tayeba and others with them have expressed a sense of despair about returning to Afghanistan. They are asking the WSE to seek another sponsor for these girls instead of returning them to Afghanistan.
“Perhaps if they had thought about finding another donor for us instead of sending us back to Afghanistan, our hopes and future wouldn’t be at risk,” Tayeba said.
Another student Parwana* said they were forbidden from speaking with the media, and it was specifically mentioned that the name of USAID should not be mentioned in this matter.
She added that before financial support for the scholarship was cut off, the program officials never allowed them to travel to Afghanistan, even for two of the students whose fathers had passed away or for weddings. The reason they were given is their lives could be in grave danger in Afghanistan.
Parwana also asked how they plan to send them back to Afghanistan collectively, given that the Taliban has all their personal information.
The students told Rukhshana Media the email gave them two weeks notice before they are made to return to Kabul.
WSE has not yet made comments on this decision to the media.
Note*: Names are changed due to security reasons.
