The Taliban have sent Afghan girls home from school in tears after reversing their decision to allow them back into the classroom.
Officials announced on Wednesday that the classroom ban on secondary school age girls would remain, saying a ruling is still to be made on the uniforms they must wear.
The inconsolable girls wearing their school uniform left their school grounds sobbing after being turned away and told to go straight home.
A teacher at a girls’ school in Kabul, was quoted by Aljazeera saying: “I see my students crying and reluctant to leave classes. It is very painful to see your students crying.”
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A pupil said: “We all got disappointed and we all became totally hopeless when the principal told us, she was also crying.”
The last time the Taliban ruled Afghanistan, from 1996 to 2001, it banned female education and most female employment. They said girls should be at home helping their mothers.
However, after returning to power in August, the group has promised opportunities for girls’ education and employment.
Television is allowed now, unlike the last Taliban regime and women have returned to work in the health and education ministry and at Kabul international Airport and passport control and customs.
But women have reported the Taliban have been checking at checkpoints if they have painted nails, are wearing high heels or have smartphones.
They say they have been unable to travel across districts without a ‘mahram’ (a male guardian), who has to be your husband, brother or father.
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The ministry only agreed to let older girls return to schools after pressure from the international community or face the possibility of being blocked from any foreign aid.
And on Tuesday evening it seemed they were going to keep their promise when a Ministry of Education spokesman released a video congratulating “all students” on their return to class for the new school year.
But hours later a Ministry of Education notice declared that schools for girls would be closed until a plan was drawn up in accordance with Islamic law and Afghan culture.
It said: “We inform all girls high schools and those schools that are having female students above class six that they are off until the next order.”
Some reports claim hardline rural tribes who are reluctant to send their daughters to school with some brothers disowning their brothers if they do allow their girls to return to the classroom.
A man who did not want to be identified told the BBC his daughter had been in shock and in tears since being refused entry by Taliban officials into the school this morning.
“If anything happens to my daughter, I will not forgive the Taliban,” he said.
Since the Taliban took power again only girls’ under 12 at primary schools along with all boys’ schools have remained open in most of the country.
Activist Mahouba Seraj, founder of the Afghan Women’s Network, said: “The excuse they gave was ‘you don’t have the proper hijab on’. There was no ruling, they just decided this morning that the hijab was not proper, for whatever reason.”
She said girls’ “school uniforms in Afghanistan are pretty covered up, always”. Secondary schools in Afghanistan are already segregated by gender.
The United Nations mission in Afghanistan said it “deplores” the announcement by the Taliban.
US special envoy Rina Amiri tweeted: "It further dashes the hopes of families for a better future for their daughters."
