Adding to their long list of severe restrictions since coming into power in 2021, the Taliban are now banning women in Afghanistan from training as nurses and midwives.
This ban is the latest in a series of edicts by the Taliban that prevent women from entering the public sphere. Women have already been banned from working in government or private jobs, leaving their homes without a male escort, or reading, singing, or speaking in public, to name a few.
Reacting to this steady increase in legal discrimination against Afghan women, the global community has condemned the Taliban’s actions as ‘gender apartheid’.