US condemns Taliban decision to ban women from universities

The US sharply rebuked the Taliban on Tuesday for expanding restrictions on women's education, most recently banning women from university study indefinitely.

"The United States condemns in the strongest terms the Taliban's indefensible decision to ban women from universities, to keep secondary schools closed to girls and to continue to impose other restrictions on the ability of women and girls in Afghanistan to exercise their human rights and their fundamental freedoms," State Department spokesman Ned Price told reporters.

The Taliban's Ministry of Higher Education announced the ban on women's university education with immediate effect Tuesday and until further notice, further excluding women from public life.

Women and girls have been deprived of their rights, including the right to education, and disappeared from the public since the Taliban returned to power Aug. 15, 2021, as officials of the US-backed Kabul administration fled the country and foreign forces withdrew.

The Taliban have failed to live up to their pledges to the international community.

"The Taliban made promises to the people of Afghanistan and to the international community that schools would reopen. They claimed that this was a matter of procedures and arrangements," said Price.

"Now, we hear the opposite. An order from the so-called Higher Education Ministry yesterday states that women cannot attend universities either. With the implementation of this decree, half of the Afghan population will soon be unable to access education beyond primary school," he added.

The Taliban's prohibitions on female participation in public life in Afghanistan has already cost the country $1 billion each year and "now the Taliban have imposed these losses on the Afghan people for the indefinite future," added Price.