Taliban allows Afghan girls to study in Pakistan

Dubai: In a significant development, the Taliban administration in Afghanistan has agreed to allow Afghan women to pursue higher education in Pakistan.

However, they will be allowed to travel and stay in Pakistan only if their male guardians are granted visas to accompany them.

This announcement comes in tandem with entrance exams last week, where hundreds of Afghan students vied for spots in graduate, postgraduate, and doctoral programs at universities across Pakistan. Afghan refugees in Pakistan took part in the exams in Peshawar and Quetta, while students in Afghanistan will take the exams online in the coming days.

5,000 Afghan female students

According to Pakistan’s special envoy for Afghanistan, Mohammad Sadiq, approximately 21,000 Afghan students have applied for the Allama Iqbal Scholarships for the upcoming academic session. Of these, more than 5,000 are women. The scholarship program, which is fully funded, aims to send up to 2,000 students abroad, with one-third of the available spots reserved for women

A Pakistani government official confirmed the Taliban’s conditional approval of the scholarship program, adding that Pakistan is committed to issuing visas for the male guardians to ensure compliance with Afghan law. However, the Taliban has not yet issued an official statement on this agreement, the Express Tribune reported.

The Allama Iqbal Scholarship initiative, which focuses on fields such as medicine, engineering, agriculture, and computer science, aims to strengthen educational and diplomatic ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan. The program had been interrupted after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in 2021, when they imposed a ban on girls’ education beyond the sixth grade and severely restricted women’s ability to travel without a male relative.

This recent shift marks a notable change amid growing international criticism of the Taliban’s restrictions on women’s rights, which the United Nations has condemned as “gender apartheid.” While the Taliban defends their policies as consistent with Islamic law and Afghan culture, calls for policy changes from the global community remain strong.