By: Somaya Mandgar
After many years of girls being in the top of Afghanistan’s university entrance results, this year there were no girls present. It’s a stark reminder of the impact of the Taliban in power. With girls banned from high school classes, fear of repercussions for allowing daughters to get an education is growing.
Students who spoke to Rukhshana Media for this report say their families stopped them from participating in the exam, even if they had privately prepared for it. Several students say education for women is seen increasingly as something negative and to be avoided out of fear, and it’s becoming more accepted to refuse women an education at university, even though university classes are permitted.
Aziza, 19, lives in the remote district of Punjab in Bamyan. She has endured many hardships to successfully graduate from high school. Aziza says she feels lucky that she was able to finish school before the Taliban returned to power, nevertheless, when she went to sit the university entrance examination, her family opposed it.
The fear of a Taliban crackdown against women studying pushed Aziza’s father and brothers to stop her from sitting the exam. They told her there was not point in getting into university as they could not accompany her to her classes.
“If you were going to university for one or two days and we could send someone with you,” she said her father told her. “But you will be going for four years so we cannot send anyone with you.”
It has been more than 400 days since the Taliban banned girls above the sixth grade. Despite pressure from both within Afghanistan and outside the country, the Taliban has refused to reopen girls’ schools citing all manner of delays.
Furthermore, the Taliban banned women from traveling alone in the country for long distances. The restriction affects female students as some would travel for a semester to a university in another province or city. Many reports show that the restriction has either excluded many female students from university or made their travel extremely difficult.
Aziza says that since the Taliban returned, she has noticed a shifting of attitudes towards women’s education including at university.
“What will people say if we send our daughter to the center of Bamyan or the center of Punjab,” her family says to her.
More than 3,000 applicants in Bamyan were eligible to participate in the Kankor exam, of which nearly half, or 1,477, were girls.
In Aziza’s village, at least six girls were eligible, but according to her, only two of the six managed to sit the exam. Four other girls were not allowed by their families to participate.
Many girls were worried that the Taliban would prevent them from sitting the entrance exam. While that did not happen, the Taliban has restricted what fields of study girls can pursue. Girls are not allowed to study degrees relating to journalism, engineering, veterinary science, agriculture, and mining.
Because the Taliban has not allowed girls above the sixth grade to go to school, next year the entrance exam may be held without the presence of girls completely because, in many provinces, no girls will be able to graduate from school..
This situation is worrying for Aziza. She said that she is afraid that she will miss going to university for the rest of her life.
“I don’t know if I will ever have the chance to take the entrance exam again,” she says. “Being completely stuck at home after graduating from high school is so disappointing.”
Zubaida Asadi, 20, says she participated in the Kankor entrance exam last year and was accepted into a university in one of the distant provinces. But she did not go to the university because of the distance she would have to travel. She decided to take the entrance exam again this year, but she did not get on offer. She feels disappointed and says her dreams are slipping away from her.
Zubaida is deeply unhappy with the Taliban’s restrictions because not only does it oppress women but it will lead to setbacks for the country more and more.
Girls who successfully sat the Kankor this year say that their families did not celebrate their results and for many it was very hard to get their families to consent to them sitting it at all.
Sima Sediqi,* 22, tells Rukhshana Media that her family’s views on education for girls has changed since the return of the Taliban and it seems to becoming more socially frowned upon.
“The neighbours say, don’t let your daughter go to university because your innocent and noble daughter will lose her way and go off the tracks if she goes to university,” Sima says.
Zeba Samimi*, 19, from Bamyan’s Punjab district was able to get her family’s approval to participate in the Kankor after much anticipation. She feared they would not let her take the test. But she says all the other restrictions continue to affect her and will make following her education through all the more difficult.
“The limitations that have been created against women and girls make me worry that I may not be able to continue my studies even after entering the university,” she says.
Since taking power in Afghanistan last year, the Taliban has imposed at least 30 restrictive decrees against women.
According to a new report from the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, women’s rights are backsliding in a far more severe way than when the Taliban were in power in the 1990s.
* Note: The names of interviewees are chosen pseudonyms.
