UN Security Council raises Concerns on Taliban's Ban on Female Medical Education

The recent decision by Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers to ban women from medical education The U.N. Security Council said Friday it was deeply concerned and opined which could leave millions of women and girls without health care in the future.

It is criticized by the council for “the increasing erosion” of human rights under the Taliban, especially for women and girls who have been denied access to education beyond the sixth grade, economic opportunities, participation in public life, freedom of movement, and other basics.

The reports were not confirmed previously by Authorities that Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada ordered educational institutions to stop providing medical courses for women. In Afghanistan, women and girls can only be treated by female doctors and health professionals.

The resolution was adopted unanimously and the Security Council criticized not only the medical education ban but the Taliban’s “vice and virtue” directive issued in August that further restricts women’s rights, including prohibiting their voices from being heard in public and it extends the mandate of the U.N. expert team monitoring sanctions against the Taliban for 14 months.

In 2021 The Taliban seized power in Afghanistan as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew following two decades of war. No country officially recognizes them as Afghanistan’s government. The U.N. stated that while bans on female education and employment remain in place and women can’t go out in public without a male guardian, recognition is almost impossible.

U.N. special envoy for Afghanistan, Roza Otunbayeva, told the council this week that women and girls are “facing progressive erasure from almost all walks of life.” She said the Taliban announcement in early September that female students would be barred from attending medical institutes and classes of higher education would have serious consequences.

Otunbayeva said, “If fully implemented, this would have deadly implications for women and girls in particular, but also for men and boys, entire communities and the country as a whole — by denying Afghans a functioning health care system that is open to all.”

“I have strongly urged the de facto authorities to reconsider,”