Female university students say they face physical violence, threats, harassment, humiliation and psychological violence every day in the campuses and hostels in Kabul, Balkh and Herat provinces.
The Taliban have imposed draconian restrictive regulations on all women across the country. But female students have been impacted more than others because they study and some of them live in compounds managed by the Taliban who severely punish anyone violating the restrictions they have imposed.
Asma, a 21-year-old student from Ghazni who lives in the hostel of Kabul University, said she wouldn’t spend a single night there if she didn’t have to.
Asma, who is a third year student at Polytechnic Engineering University in Kabul, said the hostel was the most comforting place for her in the world but everything changed after the Taliban’s return to power.
“Now the hostel environment and its rooms aren’t comforting anymore,” she said. “I leave several times a week to spend time in relatives’ homes in Kabul just to be away from the hostel.”
She said the Taliban closely monitor girls’ hostels and anything could provoke them to harass female students. Wearing colorful socks or a short dress, and taking a photo on a smartphone can put them at risk of being punished.
“If we want to leave the hostel wearing colorful socks, they will seize our access card, and won’t let us leave the hostel,” she added. “If we want to enter the same way, they wouldn’t let us enter.”
Breshna, a 23-year-old art student at Kabul University who lives in the hostel, said once she saw the female employees of the Taliban’s religious police cursed a female student for wearing colorful socks. She said was also insulted with abusive language once but she pretended she didn’t hear anything because they can’t complain to anyone.
Breshna said that one of her friends was so badly insulted for wearing a colorful dress that she had isolated herself for days.
The former director of the Kabul University’s dormitory was fired, and the Taliban hired Malalai Mohammadi as new director. Female students complain that Mohammadi has made their lives difficult in the hostel. One student said Mohammadi once verbally abused a female student for taking a photo using her smartphone during the celebration of mother’s day in the hostel. Other students said that Mohammadi enforces strict hijab restrictions even inside the all-female hostel.
The Taliban reopened hostels and universities in February more than six months after they seized power. The reopening came with numerous restrictions which, according to students, have turned the hostel into a prison. The students have been threatened to be expelled from the university if they don’t wear proper hijab.
It is not only Kabul students who face daily harassment and abuse while they are at the university or in the hostel. Female students from Balkh and Herat Universities said they face the same challenges.
Negina, 23, a student at Herat University, said students are being monitored closely, and that she personally saw a female student was denied entry to the university last week.
The situation is even worse at Balkh University.
Shamila, a 23-year-old and third-year student at Balkh University, said she saw the Taliban employees of the directorate of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice had stopped a group of girls who were crying on campus. They had apparently violated the Taliban’s hijab code.
Shabana, another student at Balkh University, said many of her friends quit university due to the restrictions.
“Only five out of twenty girls remain in my class,” she said. “We have no motivation.”
According to Shabana, the Taliban fighters have repeatedly warned if female students do not abide by the Taliban’s rules, including the all-covering black hijab, they would close the universities.
Zarghuna, 23, said she once witnessed a Taliban fighter slapping a female student at the entrance of Balkh university because she had sat in the front seat of her father’s car.
Shabnam, 24 and a fourth-year student at Balkh University, said he witnessed the students being insulted violently twice in the past few days. In both cases, she said, girls were left in tears.
“I do not understand what our future will be,” she said.
- Names marked are pseudonyms for security reasons at the request of the interviewees.
