{"id":10194,"date":"2022-07-06T10:47:38","date_gmt":"2022-07-06T06:17:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/?p=10194"},"modified":"2022-07-06T10:47:41","modified_gmt":"2022-07-06T06:17:41","slug":"female-university-students-face-harassment-and-violence-in-the-campuses-and-hostels-in-afghanistan-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/female-university-students-face-harassment-and-violence-in-the-campuses-and-hostels-in-afghanistan-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Female University students face harassment and violence in the campuses and hostels in Afghanistan (2)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asma, a 21-year-old student from Ghazni who lives in the hostel of Kabul University, said she wouldn\u2019t spend a single night there if she didn\u2019t have to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s return to power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNow the hostel environment and its rooms aren\u2019t comforting anymore,\u201d she said. \u201cI leave several times a week to spend time in relatives’ homes in Kabul just to be away from the hostel.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

She said the Taliban closely monitor girls\u2019 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf we want to leave the hostel wearing colorful socks, they will seize our access card, and won\u2019t let us leave the hostel,\u201d she added. \u201cIf we want to enter the same way, they wouldn\u2019t let us enter.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s religious police cursed a female student for wearing colorful socks. She said was also insulted with abusive language once but she pretended she didn\u2019t hear anything because they can\u2019t complain to anyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Breshna said that one of her friends was so badly insulted for wearing a colorful dress that she had isolated herself for days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The former director of the Kabul University\u2019s 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\u2019s day in the hostel. Other students said that Mohammadi enforces strict hijab restrictions even inside the all-female hostel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019t wear proper hijab.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The situation is even worse at Balkh University.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s hijab code.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shabana, another student at Balkh University, said many of her friends quit university due to the restrictions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOnly five out of twenty girls remain in my class,\u201d she said. \u201cWe have no motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to Shabana, the Taliban fighters have repeatedly warned if female students do not abide by the Taliban\u2019s rules, including the all-covering black hijab, they would close the universities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u2019s car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI do not understand what our future will be,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n