‘Our sisters deserve better’: Afghan men quit university jobs after ban on female students

A Taliban decree against higher education for women – called a ‘betrayal of the nation’ – has led to male lecturers and student walkouts in solidarity

Baktash Amini loved his job as an assistant professor in the physics faculty at Kabul University. As well as having a passion for teaching, he took pride in helping his students pursue careers in physics, setting up partnershipswith the International Centre for Theoretical Physics and Cern, among others.

But his efforts to further scientific education in Afghanistan seemed futile when the Taliban announced that women would be banned from university education. “The night [the] Taliban closed the doors of universities to Afghan women, I received many messages and calls from my students. I cannot find the words to describe their situation. I am an academic and the only way I could express protest was by [leaving] a system that discriminates against women,” he says. He resigned from his “dream job” on 21 December.