What’s Current: Taliban ban on girls attending high school will keep females out of universities in Afghanistan

  • Female students in Afghanistan won’t be able to attend university if the Taliban’s ban on girls getting a high school education stays in place. Girls will not have the documents required to enroll in higher education or the academic capacity to start university courses after missing so much school. The Guardian reports:

“Online classes and illegal underground schools have allowed some girls to keep studying, including in parts of the Taliban’s deeply conservative southern heartland, but these efforts only reach a tiny minority.

Because secret schools are private initiatives, most have to charge fees to at least cover their costs, and the economic catastrophe that engulfed Afghanistan means few families can afford them.”

  • Hundreds protest outside a South African court as over 80 male suspects face charges for raping eight women and robbing a video production crew in Krugersdorp.
  • Trans-identified male activist Ruby Corado has allegedly disappeared with funds for Casa Ruby, Corado’s nonprofit network of “LGBTQ+” shelters in Washington D.C.
  • A report reveals eight in 10 women seeking support after sexual assault are diagnosed with a mental illness, raising concerns that women must accept psychiatric labels to qualify for counselling.
  • Scotland prison officials say they will consider housing trans-identified male inmates in a new custody centre for low-risk women offenders, prompting Keep Prisons Single Sex campaigners to speak out.
Meghan McCarty

Meghan McCarty is an undergraduate student and aspiring journalist living in the United States.