VOA: ISLAMABAD — Afghanistan’s Islamist Taliban have indefinitely barred girls from taking private university entrance exams, tightening their ban on women’s education in the country. Ziaullah Hashmi, a spokesperson for the Taliban higher education ministry, Saturday confirmed to VOA they had sent out a letter to private Afghan universities across the country ordering them not to enroll female students for the upcoming spring semester.
Military Times: Narges Hussaini and her family traveled to Herat, Afghanistan, on August 13, 2021. As a former female employee with the Ministry of the Interior, she knew she could face retribution when her country fell to the Taliban. Her plan was to take her family with a group of smugglers across the border into Iran. However, a friend instead told her that they would have better luck escaping on the planes flying out of Hamid Karzai International Airport.
Zan Times: Shazia is seven years old, the age when Afghan children start school. But an education isn’t an option for Shazia, who lives in Kandahar city, the spiritual home of the Taliban. A month ago, her father forced her to marry a 22-year-old member of the Taliban, a relative tells Zan Times. “One day after the wedding, Shazia was whimpering and wanted to go back to her father’s house, but her in-laws did not allow her,” says the relation. The mullah imam who performed the wedding of this child says, “This marriage was done with the consent of the agents of both parties.”
CNN: At least 78 people have died in freezing conditions in Afghanistan in the last nine days, a Taliban official said Thursday, deepening a humanitarian crisis affecting millions of people now living under the control of the radical Islamist group. Shafiullah Rahimi, a spokesperson for the Taliban’s Ministry of Disaster Management, told CNN that along with the loss of human life, more than 77,000 livestock had also frozen to death in recent days.
Amu TV:A research organization that asked not to be identified for security reasons said they have recorded at least 2,200 cases of forced marriages in the past year, of which 900 were girls married off to Taliban members. “I was not ready but was forced to marry” Shukria, from Balkh province, is being forced to marry after being stopped from attending university. She said her family insists she marries in order to prevent the Taliban from forcing her “to marry one of their members.”