The girls were absent from a Taliban statement to resume high school.
In Afghanistan on Saturday, high school girls were banned from returning to high school after the country’s new rulers, the Taliban, ruled that only boys and male teachers could return to class.
A brutal Islamist group returned to power last month after the withdrawal of US troops, promising a softer type of government than their repressive rule in the 1990s, when women were banned from studying and working, according to AFP.
“All male teachers and students must attend their educational institutions,” the statement said before resuming classes on Saturday.
A statement issued late Friday night said nothing about women teachers or students.
In Afghanistan, high schools with students between the ages of 13 and 18 are often divided by gender.
They were repeatedly shut down during the pandemic, and were closed after the Taliban seized power.
Since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 as a result of the US invasion, significant progress has been made in the field of girls’ education: the number of schools has tripled and the number of schools for girls has doubled.
Women’s literacy has almost doubled to 30 percent, but the changes have mainly affected only cities.
The United Nations has said it is “deeply concerned” about the future of girls’ education in Afghanistan.
Primary schools have reopened, boys and girls attend mostly gender-segregated classes, and some female teachers have returned to work.
The new regime also allowed women to attend private universities, albeit with strict restrictions on clothing and travel.
As another sign that the Taliban’s approach to women and girls had not softened, they closed the women’s ministry and replaced it with a department known for adhering to strict religious doctrine during their first rule. In Kabul on Friday, workers were spotted raising a sign from the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and Morality in an old building for women’s affairs in the capital.