The Minister of Higher Education in the Taliban justified preventing women from entering universities in Afghanistan, saying they “don’t respect the dress code,” while G7 foreign ministers denounced the measures taken against women, saying which could be considered a “crime against humanity”.
In a brief message, Higher Education Minister Nada Mohamed Nadeem ordered all public and private universities in the country to suspend women’s education until further notice.
She justified this decision by saying, “Those female students going to university…didn’t comply with the hijab instructions. The hijab is obligatory in Islam,” referring to the requirement to completely cover the head, face and body of a woman.
The minister specified that the girls, who were studying in a province far from home, “did not travel with a mahram, an adult male companion”.
“Our Afghan honor does not allow a young Muslim woman from one province to be present in a remote province without her father, brother or husband accompanying her,” she stressed.
UNESCO “strongly” condemned the Taliban’s decision, calling for its “immediate repeal”. “UNESCO condemns the Taliban’s decision to deny women access to universities, which comes after 15 months of excluding girls from secondary school,” she said. He denounced “a grave violation of human dignity and of the fundamental right to education”.
