Female students reportedly returned to Afghanistan’s public universities on Wednesday when the country’s campuses opened for the first time since the Islamist Taliban took over. The women were permitted to attend classes as long as they were separated from the male students, Reuters reported. The Taliban has not made an official announcement of how female students will be handled. Some universities reportedly will have separate classes for male and female students, including staggered operating hours so that they do not meet on campus.
The Taliban prevented women and girls from educational frameworks when it last ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001.
US State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a briefing on Wednesday that getting women back to schools in Afghanistan is “something that we have been pressing for. I know that there have been various statements made by the Taliban. What we’ll be watching for are the actions and the follow-through when it comes to the rights of women, the human rights of Afghanistan’s women, girls, its minorities. It’s something that we have prioritized to a great degree.” He added that “The Taliban are under no illusions about the priority we attach to this issue, the priority we have attached and we will attach going forward.”