Originally published 2021-09-15.
In September 2021, a month after seizing Kabul, the Taliban announced that women could keep studying at Afghan universities, but only in classes separated from men and under a compulsory Islamic dress code. Higher Education Minister Abdul Baqi Haqqani set out the rules at a news conference on 12 September 2021. The promise did not last: on 20 December 2022 the Taliban suspended university education for women altogether, and girls have been kept out of secondary school since the takeover.
Looking back, those first announcements are a useful record of how the new government presented itself and how quickly its position hardened. This article covers what was announced, how it compared with the Taliban's first period in power, what had changed for Afghan women in the twenty years between, and what has happened since.
The rules announced in September 2021
Haqqani spoke in Kabul a few days after the Taliban named an all-male interim government. His message was that higher education for women would continue, on new terms. "We will not allow boys and girls to study together," he told reporters, as quoted by the Associated Press.
The main points were:
- Gender segregation. Men and women would be taught in separate classes, ending the mixed classrooms that had become common at many Afghan universities.
- Compulsory hijab. Female students would have to wear Islamic dress. The minister did not make clear whether this meant a headscarf or a full face covering.
- Teaching arrangements. Women were to be taught by female lecturers where possible. Where there were not enough, the minister reportedly suggested men could teach from behind a curtain or through technology, and in the following days photos circulated of lecture halls divided down the middle by curtains.
- Curriculum review. Subjects taught at university would be reviewed to bring them in line with Islamic values, though no details were given.
Haqqani also insisted that the Taliban did not want to "turn the clock back 20 years," and said the government would build on what already existed.
Why many Afghans doubted the promises
Scepticism was widespread from the start, because of the Taliban's record. When they ruled most of Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, girls were barred from school after about the age of eight and women were banned from most paid work. Women had to wear the burqa in public and could not go out without a close male relative, known as a mahram. Punishments included public floggings and executions, and women accused of adultery could be stoned to death.
In 2021 the Taliban returned after a twenty-year war against the US-backed Afghan government and NATO forces, ending with the chaotic Western withdrawal in August. Their spokesmen spoke of a more moderate approach, saying women would be able to work, move around and study. Many Afghan women, activists and foreign governments said they would judge the movement by its actions rather than its words. Some donor countries, including Germany, warned that development aid would depend on respect for basic rights.
Twenty years of change for Afghan women
The stakes were high because so much had changed after 2001. According to UNESCO, the number of girls in primary school rose from almost none in 2001 to about 2.5 million in 2018. The number of women in higher education grew from around 5,000 to about 90,000 over the same period, and the female literacy rate almost doubled, from 17% to 30%.
Women had become doctors, judges, journalists, members of parliament, police officers and university lecturers, especially in the cities. Progress was uneven, and rural women often had far fewer opportunities, but a generation of young women had grown up expecting to finish school and go to university.
What happened next: from segregation to exclusion
The September 2021 rules turned out to be a short phase. Girls above sixth grade were not allowed back into secondary school in autumn 2021, and in March 2022 the Taliban reversed a plan to reopen girls' high schools on the very morning they were due to return. Without secondary school, fewer and fewer young women could qualify for university anyway.
On 20 December 2022 the Ministry of Higher Education suspended university education for women in public and private institutions. Days later, aid organisations were ordered to stop employing Afghan women, prompting several international NGOs to pause work.
Restrictions continued to pile up. A May 2022 decree required women to cover fully in public, with male relatives facing penalties if they did not. Women were barred from parks, gyms and public baths in November 2022, and beauty salons were ordered closed in 2023. In 2024 a "vice and virtue" law limited women's travel without a male guardian and even their speaking or singing in public. In December 2024 women were also barred from training as nurses and midwives, which the UN human rights office called profoundly discriminatory.
The international response
Almost no country has formally recognised the Taliban government, and the treatment of women remains the main obstacle to wider engagement. UN experts have said the strict separation of men and women may amount to "gender apartheid."
In January 2025 the prosecutor of the International Criminal Court requested arrest warrants for the Taliban's supreme leader and its chief justice over the persecution of women and girls, and the court issued them later that year. Muslim-majority countries and religious scholars have also pointed out that Islam places a high value on learning for both men and women, undercutting the Taliban's claim that the bans are religious duties.
Why the 2021 announcement still matters
The September 2021 news conference is often remembered as the moment the Taliban tried to present a softer face to the world. Segregated classrooms and a strict dress code were already a major step back, but they still left women inside the university system.
Within fifteen months, that door had closed. Today many Afghan girls and young women study through secret home classes, online courses and scholarships abroad. Their persistence, and the gap between the Taliban's early words and later actions, are the real story behind those first rules.
Sources: PBS NewsHour / Associated Press, 12 September 2021: Taliban say women can study in gender-segregated universities; Wikipedia: Treatment of women by the Taliban; UNESCO via ReliefWeb: concern over the exclusion of girls and women from education. Early coverage also by the BBC.
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