The Taliban government prohibited books authored by women in Afghan universities

The leaders of the Taliban have ordered Afghan universities to remove books by female authors from their curricula and stop instruction in several subjects, such as gender studies, human rights, and courses focused on women’s roles in society.

According to BBC News, the list of banned books includes 679 titles, with more than 140 publications authored by women and academic textbooks like “Safety in the Chemical Laboratory.” Additionally, hundreds of books written by Iranian authors or published in Iran were seized to “prevent Iranian content from infiltrating Afghan education.”

Eighteen academic courses devoted to women were also banned, including Gender and Development, The Role of Women in Communication, Women’s Sociology, and many more.

In his letter to universities Ziaur Rahman Aryubi, the deputy academic director of the Taliban government’s Ministry of Higher Education, said that the decisions had been made by a panel of “religious scholars and experts.”

“Given the Taliban’s misogynistic mindset and policies, it is only natural that when women themselves are not allowed to study, their views, ideas and writings are also suppressed,” commented Zakia Adeli, the former deputy minister of justice prior to the Taliban’s return.

As the BBC points out, teachers in Afghanistan fear that they will now have to write teaching materials themselves, adhering to strict prohibitions that will effectively cut Afghan universities off from global academic standards. One of the professors, preferring not to reveal their name, told the BBC that “books by Iranian authors and translators serve as the primary link between Afghanistan’s universities and the global academic community. Their removal creates a substantial void in higher education.”

BBC News has contacted the Taliban’s Ministry of Education for comment.

As reported earlier, Afghan women faced a series of new restrictions, including a ban on reading aloud. They were also prohibited from attending universities, working for NGOs or the United Nations, playing sports, seeing male doctors, and visiting beauty salons. On top of that, women are not allowed to travel in cars without wearing a hijab or enter national parks.

Main image: SHAFIULLAH KAKAR/Getty Images 

Copy editing: Terra Friedman King