Women training as midwives and nurses in Afghanistan have been barred from continuing their education, after the Taliban instructed the closure of five institutions across the country this week.
Videos have been shared online, showing students crying at the latest curtailing of women’s rights.
According to BBC, Taliban government’s health ministry have not yet officially announced the order, but the education colleges have been closed until further notice.
“[We were told to] wait until further notice,” one midwife student told the BBC. “Even though it is the end of our semester, exams have not yet been conducted, and we have not been given permission to take them.”
Another student said she and her classmates “…were only given time to grab our bags and leave the classrooms”.
“They even told us not to stand in the courtyard because the Taliban could arrive at any moment, and something might happen,” she said. “Everyone was terrified. For many of us, attending classes was a small glimmer of hope after long periods of unemployment, depression, and isolation at home.”
Roughly 17,000 women are currently enrolled in midwifery and nursing training courses in Afghanistan — one of the only avenues left for women seeking an education. Under the Taliban’s authoritarian restrictions, women were permitted to train and practice as midwives and nurses due to the restriction against male medics treating female patients without an accompanying male guardian.
Now, it appears this avenue is closing.
Since August 2021, the Taliban have gradually terminated women’s rights, including their right to education, employment, participating in sports and speaking in public, passing the “vice and virtue” law in October this year.
The latest closures of training colleges sends another blow to the country’s women, particularly as the UN reported last year that the country required an extra 18,000 midwives to meet women’s healthcare and maternity needs.
The absence of their services “endangers lives and undermines women’s and girls’ bodily autonomy on a vast scale,” the UN report stated. “Midwives can meet about 90 per cent of the need for essential reproductive, maternal, newborn and adolescent health needs.”
In the last three years, as the Taliban’s reach continued to grow, pregnant women have been left without care as hospitals and clinics shuttered due to the risk of danger to staff.
It’s a concerning reality for a country that already has among the worst maternal mortality rates in the world, with over 630 women dying per 100,000 live births, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).