The Voice of Afghan Women movement, led by Hadiya Sahebzada, denounced the Taliban’s recent ban on women’s medical education, saying the Taliban have barred girls from education while allowing their own daughters to study abroad.
“By denying Afghan girls the right to education, you are plunging the nation into darkness and ignorance, while your own daughters enjoy educational opportunities overseas,” the movement said.
The activists called the Taliban’s actions “deeply unjust and hypocritical,” adding that such policies reveal the group’s “duplicity and betrayal.”
The statement continued, “You deny Afghan women what you allow yourselves. History will not forget these betrayals, as you have stripped women of not only their right to education but also their freedom.”
The Taliban leader’s latest directive earlier this month bars women and girls from medical education.
This move closes one of the few remaining educational avenues for Afghan girls. Since December 2022, when the Taliban banned women from universities, many girls had continued their studies in medical institutes. The new ban extinguishes even that option, compounding restrictions imposed over the past three years, including a prohibition on girls attending school beyond sixth grade.
The decision comes as Afghanistan faces a severe shortage of female doctors, nurses, and midwives—a crisis that disproportionately affects women in rural areas, where access to healthcare is already limited.
