Afghan universities resume classes with curtains to separate males, females (PICS)

Kabul: A number of private universities in Afghanistan have curtained off an area in classrooms for female students to sit separately from men, confirming fears that women's rights might be in jeopardy after the Taliban takeover, a local student told Sputnik on the first day of class.

The Taliban's ban on coeducation did not spare private universities. The radical movement has recognized women's right to education, but ordered separate learning spaces for male and female students in line with Sharia law.

Female students will have to be schooled either in separate classrooms or in the section of a common classroom separated by a non-transparent curtain from male classmates, the student said.

The Taliban also ordered female students in private universities to wear abaya and niqab, and finish classes five minutes earlier so as not to meet with men on their way out. Only women will be able to teach female students, or, wherever this cannot be arranged, "elderly men" of good reputation, the student said.

The number of private universities boomed in Afghanistan after the overthrow of Taliban rule in 2001. Yet the social convention of keeping girls out of school has remained prevalent in the Central Asian country. Afghanistan has one of the highest number of children out of schools, child marriages and unemployment among the youth, which the United Nations says are all intertwined issues.

After the Taliban's takeover of Afghanistan, UN rights chief Michelle Bachelet described the radical movement's treatment of women and girls, including their access to education, as "a fundamental red line" in the international assessment of its commitment to human rights. (UNI)