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9 Private Universities in Afghanistan Face Suspension or Licence Revocation

August 10, 2026 Current News Articles

Khaama Press

August 9, 2026

Nine private higher-education institutions in Afghanistan have had their operating licences suspended or revoked over alleged “ghost students,” administrative deficiencies and violations of academic requirements.

Afghanistan’s Ministry of Higher Education, controlled by the Taliban, announced Sunday that the licences of seven institutions had been suspended for one year, while two others had their licences permanently revoked following an inspection and assessment conducted during the spring semester of the 1405 Afghanistan solar year.

The institutions whose activities have been suspended for one year are Barlas University in Jawzjan, Rah-e Saadat and Turkistan universities in Balkh, Azhar and Barna universities in Badakhshan, Rashad University in Faryab and Payam University in Kabul.

The ministry said the licences of Kohanduz University in Kunduz and Khana-e Danish University in Takhar had been permanently revoked.

According to the ministry, inspections found cases in which institutions allegedly maintained “ghost students,” failed to keep proper attendance records, admitted students who had been barred from education to final examinations and lacked required administrative and academic structures.

The ministry also cited inadequate laboratory equipment for medical students, failure to teach the curriculum approved by the ministry and insufficient opportunities for medical students to complete practical training in hospitals.

The ministry said some institutions had scheduled classes but classrooms were found to have no students attending.

The latest action comes amid wider pressure on Afghanistan’s higher-education sector, which has undergone major changes since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Restrictions on women and girls have had a particularly significant impact on universities and private higher-education institutions.

UNESCO has reported that the exclusion of women and girls from higher education has posed a major threat to the private higher-education sector. Female students and instructors have been forced to leave institutions, while private universities lost about 28% of their income after restrictions on women’s higher education took effect. UNESCO also reported that 31% of private universities were at risk of closure because of financial difficulties.

The decline in female participation has been accompanied by a broader contraction in higher education. According to UNESCO figures cited by international media, female university enrolment had fallen to zero by 2024, while overall male enrolment also declined significantly.

The authorities have also introduced tighter controls over university curricula and academic life, while international organisations have repeatedly called for Afghan girls and women to be allowed to return to secondary schools and universities.

More than 120 private higher-education institutions are operating across 34 Afghanistan provinces, according to the Ministry of Higher Education. A significant proportion of these institutions provide medical education.

The latest licensing decisions could add further pressure to an already weakened higher-education sector, although the ministry says the measures are aimed at addressing academic, administrative and regulatory violations.

Russia Eyes Railway Route to India Through Afghanistan

August 10, 2026 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

9 August 2026

Turabi: World Looking for Excuses Not to Recognize Islamic Emirate

August 10, 2026 Current News Articles

Hadia Ziaei

Tolo News

9 August 2026

Turabi also said that dialogue is the only solution to tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.

Nooruddin Turabi, Director General of the National Disaster Management Authority, says, as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan approaches its fifth anniversary, that the world is looking for excuses not to recognize the Islamic Emirate.

Five Years On: How Afghanistan’s Provinces Fell One After Another

August 10, 2026 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

TV Network

9 August 2026

Gender Apartheid Moves Closer to Recognition as International Crime

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

August 8, 2026

Amnesty International, the End Gender Apartheid Campaign and Human Rights Watch say efforts to recognize gender apartheid as an international crime have reached a significant stage, following the release of the first formal proposals to amend a draft United Nations treaty on crimes against humanity.

The organizations said the proposals, published on June 3, 2026, along with positions submitted by governments to the UN General Assembly’s Sixth Committee, will form the basis for negotiations on the treaty, scheduled to begin in January 2028.

Australia, Spain, Uruguay, Iceland, Mexico and Timor-Leste have proposed including gender apartheid in the draft treaty. Their proposal defines it as inhumane acts committed as part of an institutionalized system of systematic oppression and domination by one gender group over another, with the purpose of maintaining that system.

The three organizations said 14 countries have so far publicly supported recognizing gender apartheid as an international crime. They called on additional governments to endorse the proposal and submit formal recommendations before negotiations begin.

The organizations also highlighted the role of Afghan women in pushing for international recognition of gender apartheid, saying the campaign has emerged from years of advocacy by women seeking international accountability for what they describe as systematic and institutionalized discrimination under Taliban rule.

They said Afghan women have argued that the term accurately reflects the restrictions and abuses imposed on women and girls and provides a framework for addressing such systems of oppression under international law.

The organizations urged governments to use the period before the 2028–2029 negotiations to formally support the inclusion of gender apartheid in the proposed treaty.

If adopted, the provision would establish gender apartheid as a specific crime under the international legal framework governing crimes against humanity. However, the proposal remains subject to negotiations among UN member states and has not yet been adopted as international law.

Afghanistan-Pakistan Border Closures Reach 300 Days, Disrupting Trade

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

By Fidel Rahmati

Khaama Press

August 8, 2026

The closure of major Afghanistan-Pakistan border crossings has reached 300 days, disrupting bilateral trade, raising transport costs and pushing Afghan businesses to rely more heavily on alternative trade routes.

The crossings, including Torkham in Nangarhar, Spin Boldak in Kandahar, Kharlachi in Paktia, Angoor Adda in Paktika and Ghulam Khan in Khost, were closed to trade and transit on October 12, 2025, amid worsening tensions between Kabul and Islamabad.

The Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce and Investment says the prolonged closures have increased the cost and time required to transport goods. Afghan traders have increasingly turned to routes through northern Afghanistan, while Pakistani businesses have lost access to Afghanistan as a transit corridor toward Central Asian markets.

Khan Jan Alokozay, a board member of the chamber, said disruptions at Pakistan’s Karachi port had added to the difficulties facing Afghan importers and exporters.

The economic consequences are significant. World Bank data cited in the report shows that bilateral trade between Afghanistan and Pakistan had reached nearly $1.2 billion before the border closures. During the six-month period referenced in the data, Afghanistan exported about $318.9 million worth of goods to Pakistan and imported approximately $832 million.

The closures have particularly affected Afghan exports that depend on relatively short and established routes to Pakistani markets, including fresh and dried fruit, vegetables, spices, coal, cotton, talc and other natural products.

Pakistani exports to Afghanistan have also been affected. These include grains, medicines, sugar, construction materials, plastics and aluminium products.

The disruption has also increased pressure on Afghan consumers as longer and more expensive transport routes raise the cost of some imported goods. Traders and residents have reported increases in the prices of basic commodities, including rice.

At the same time, Afghanistan is accelerating efforts to diversify its trade routes and markets. India has emerged as its largest export destination, accounting for 34% of Afghanistan’s total exports in June, according to World Bank data cited in the report.

The prolonged border closures are therefore reshaping Afghanistan’s regional trade patterns while imposing costs on businesses and consumers in both countries. For Afghanistan, the restrictions have increased the urgency of reducing dependence on Pakistani transit routes; for Pakistan, they have reduced access to Afghan demand and an important corridor toward Central Asian markets.

The dispute has consequently developed beyond a border-management issue into a significant economic challenge for traders, transporters and consumers on both sides.

Uncertain Future for Afghan Refugees; Qatar Camp to Close

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

TOLOnews

8 August 2026

VanDiver said the camp is currently scheduled to close on September 30, 2026.

As thousands of Afghan refugees await relocation to the United States, AfghanEvac says uncertainty over their future continues.

Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, says the Donald Trump administration had decided to close the camp in Qatar where a number of Afghan refugees are being accommodated, but according to him, no clear plan has been presented for what will happen to them.

VanDiver said the camp is currently scheduled to close on September 30, 2026.

Shawn VanDiver, president of AfghanEvac, said: “Right now, the camp is scheduled to close on September 30, 2026. I don’t think that’s going to happen. I think Qatar has been very generous and considerate with these people, and I imagine there will be an extension. But right now, the camp is scheduled to close on September 30, and these people are not being given any information about what is happening. As a result, they are extremely worried and afraid and remain stuck in limbo.”

AfghanEvac also said in a new report that more than 175,000 Afghans have received initial approval for Special Immigrant Visas (SIVs), but due to existing restrictions, their interview process is not moving forward.

Meanwhile, a number of other Afghan refugees in Pakistan who are awaiting relocation to the United States have called for their immigration cases to be processed, amid continued arrests and deportations of migrants.

Aziza Azizi, a U.S. immigration case holder, said: “All stages of our process had been completed. We had also attended the interview, and our biometrics and medical examinations had been completed. We are facing many difficulties in Pakistan.”

Noorullah Ahmadi, another U.S. immigration case holder, said: “We ask the U.S. government to complete our cases as soon as possible. Two days ago, my son was taken away and was going to be deported. They came to our house at night, and we managed to escape with difficulty.”

AfghanEvac also announced yesterday that no Special Immigrant Visas have been issued to Afghan passport holders so far in 2026, further raising concerns about the future of thousands of applicants under the program.

UN: More Than 600,000 Afghans Have Returned From Pakistan

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

Bibi Amina Hakimi

TOLOnews’ Reporter

8 Aug 2026

Taliban are cheering five years in power while Afghan women starve

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

Christina Lamb

Chief Foreign Correspondent

The Sunday Times

Saturday August 08, 2026

When Nilofar Hanafi started working for the World Food Programme hotline in Afghanistan in 2022, she thought she would simply be providing information to callers.

Now, as the organisation has run out of food for the starving nation, she and other call handlers are fielding hundreds of pleas every week from women so desperate that they threaten to kill themselves or say they will have to sell one of their children into marriage to be able to feed the rest.

“I feel like a counsellor,” said Hanafi, whose name has been changed to protect her identity. “Most of the areas they are calling from we no longer have any feeding programmes. We just have to say, ‘Sorry, there is no food because there’s no aid’. People get angry and emotional and start crying. It’s very hard.”

As the Taliban prepare to celebrate five years of rule on August 15, with parades expected of their suicide bomber squad on motorbikes and American equipment left by Nato forces when they abandoned Afghanistan in 2021, the country is on the brink of famine.

Six out of seven women and children suffering life-threatening acute malnutrition are being turned away from clinics because of cuts to international aid, combined with price rises and supply disruption caused by the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, according to country director John Aylieff, from the World Food Programme (WFP) in Afghanistan.

“Mothers are walking three or four hours to our clinics only to be told, ‘Sorry, we don’t have food to help your child survive’,” he said. “We are on the brink of famine and seeing the highest surge of child malnutrition ever recorded, but international cuts mean we are so underfunded we’ve had to totally stop feeding 14 million acutely hungry people.”

On top of that, they can only provide special nutrition packs for a fraction of the 4.7 million Afghans facing life-threatening malnutrition. “We’re turning six out of seven women and children away empty handed, with absolutely nothing,” Aylieff said. “The situation is absolutely bleak.”

‘Gender-based lockdown’

The hunger, compounded by ever-more repressive Taliban restrictions on women and girls, is causing what many see as the world’s worst female mental health crisis.

Afghanistan is the only place on Earth where girls are banned from high school and university. Women are banned from parks, gyms and most jobs and not allowed outside without a male guardian in what Shukria Barakzai, a former Afghan MP, calls “gender-based lockdown”.

“We all remember the toll of lockdown in the pandemic,” said Barakzai, who like most female MPs, fled the country for her safety after the Taliban took back control in 2021. “Afghan women and girls have had almost five years of gender-based lockdown.

“Imagine living every day not knowing whether the door to freedom will ever reopen. The psychological trauma is immense.”

Initial outrage in the West seems to have faded and, in June, the European Union even hosted a Taliban delegation to discuss sending back migrants.The Taliban has imposed more and more restrictions on women, including banning all books by female authors and closing down beauty salons, which had become many women’s last refuge. Morality police patrol the streets, raiding workplaces and public spaces and arbitrarily arresting women for “violations” of dress codes.

The most recent penal code in January allows domestic abuse by recognising only “excessive beating” of wives as a crime and even then punishable by a maximum of 15 days in jail, and scrapped the minimum age for child marriage.

A recent study by the London School of Economics on the impact of the restrictions on women’s health, both mental and physical, described “a sense of loss, hopeless, fear for themselves and for their children, as well as sheer boredom … to alleviate a sense of despair for the future, and combat pain, [some] girls and women are getting addicted to tobacco and other drugs … In worse-case scenarios, young women are committing suicide.”

Professor Joanna Lewis, director of the Centre for Women, Peace and Security at the LSE, and one of the co-authors of the study, said: “The women call the situation ‘arrest at home’ and say [the Taliban] do not want us to live.”

Sara Nazim, 28, a mental health professional in Hounslow, west London, whose family are from Afghanistan, runs an online book club for about fifty women in the country. She says the stories they tell her are heartbreaking.

“One woman told me we are not even allowed to have a window in our kitchen,” she said. The Taliban have banned women being seen at windows. “Many talk of the loss of hope. They say even animals are treated with more respect than us.

“I can’t help comparing my own life,” she added. “I completed my bachelor’s degree in London in 2021 just as the Taliban took over, then did a master’s and now work in integrated neurological services. Had I been in Afghanistan, none of this would have been possible and I would be shut up at home.”

Nazim has written a book called Silent Scars of our Land, documenting her conversations with the women. “The scars may not be visible,” she said, “but the women in my book club all suffer chronic stress, anxiety and sleep problems — this is not just a human rights crisis but a profound mental health crisis.”

There is also a physical impact from keeping 2.6 million girls out of school. Increased child marriage and early childbearing combined with restrictions on women’s healthcare have seen maternal mortality rise to 600 per 100,000 live births, according to a report in June from the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs. This compares with 16 per 100,000 in Iran and 12 in the UK.

While almost 19 million Afghans are in the grip of acute hunger or worse, the WFP received only 8 per cent of the $500 million funding it needs for the next six months, according to Aylieff. It has been particularly affected by cuts from the Trump administration. The US used to provide the majority of its funding.“It feels like starving children no longer strikes a chord because there are too many conflicts,” Aylieff said. Families are left feeding starving babies weak tea and bread.

Resources have been further stretched by the forced return of refugees from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan — almost 6 million over the last three years.

As hunger worsens, the 26 WFP hotline operators like Hanafi are at the sharp end, dealing with more than 11,000 calls a month. The majority of the call handlers are women working from home.

Hanafi, who used to work in a government ministry and is overqualified to be a call handler, says she is lucky to have a job and be able to feed her parents, whom she lives with.

But she says the combination of the women’s hopelessness over their own situation, as well as not being able to feed their children, often leaves her in tears.“I’ve had cases where women say, ‘If you can’t assist us, we will have to kill ourselves or burn our families’,” she said.

“One woman recently called me from Balkh and told me she has six children and her husband is a drug addict and only comes home when he is hungry, then takes their household items to sell to buy drugs. She said, ‘The last time he came we had nothing left so he started beating me. The Taliban don’t let me work so the only option I have is to sell my 11-year-old daughter’.

“Unfortunately, I had to tell her we didn’t have any [food available] in that area.” Hanafi does not know what happened to the woman.

One man who called her turned aggressive when she said there was no food and asked her. “Why are you called the World Food Programme?” He said he would have no alternative but to sell his eight-year-old daughter.

In Taliban-Ruled Afghanistan, One Woman Refuses a Life of Dependence

August 8, 2026 Current News Articles

Inter Press Service

Friday, August 7, 2026

Afghan women working under Taliban rule face severe restrictions. Mehrmaa’s story shows one widow’s fight to earn a living and support her children — *“They say driving is only for men. But women have proved that they, too, can drive.” Credit: Learning Together*.

KABUL, August 7 (IPS) – The Taliban’s rise to power robbed Mehrmaa of her husband, her job and her chance to live freely.

It was a cold, snowy night in March 2022 when Mehrmaa’s neighbors brought her husband’s lifeless body home. He had disappeared more than seven months earlier. Mehrmaa had barely managed to cope with the new restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban, and now she felt as if the weight of the world was on her shoulders.

“At the end of our road home, there were seven coffins containing bodies that had been delivered to their families. Seven months ago they had been taken alive and now they have been returned dead,” Mehrmaa says.

Mehrmaa describes how, in July 2021, the Taliban took over the provinces and its forces entered her hometown on motorbikes. The Taliban raised their flag in the centre of the city as a sign of victory. Government helicopters bombed the city, leaving many people homeless and without shelter. Mehrmaa’s province was the first to fall under Taliban oppression. Many fled in panic.

“The state kidnapped many young men to defend the city, including my husband.”

After the Taliban takeover, women were threatened with imprisonment if they walked the streets alone.

“Women were flogged in public for small and frivolous reasons. Widowed women and underage girls were forced into marriages without their consent.”

Women faced daily hardships, regardless of whether they had male relatives to protect them.

“Now that the Taliban are in power in Afghanistan, what can we do? We only live for our children. Women want to work so they can earn money for their families.”

Under the Taliban, women were forbidden from working. Mehrmaa wanted to continue working to support her children. That drove her onto the streets.

“Now I live a nomadic life with my children. We have no permanent home and we don’t stay in one place for long.”

Work became a means of survival

Mehrmaa is a trained teacher and midwife. She treats women’s fertility problems with herbs and gives massages for knee, back and joint pain. Under her late husband’s guidance, Mehrmaa learned to drive. She ran the first driving school for women in her province and taught hundreds of women how to drive.

Then the Taliban banned women from driving. Under the direction of the Ministry of the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, or morality police, local Taliban authorities reprimanded Mehrmaa and issued her a warning.

“They say driving is only for men. But women have proved that they, too, can drive. Even those who don’t have a husband in their family have learnt to drive.”

After her husband died, Mehrmaa had to continue working to feed her children. To survive, she returned to the city and began working as a teacher.

Despite changing careers, Mehrmaa was once again banned from working. Girls were banned from attending school from high school onwards, and educational institutions were closed to them. Mehrmaa took up work as a domestic helper and also provided personal physical education lessons to girls and women who had been excluded from school.

She is also a skilled physiotherapist. She founded the first women-only sports and massage centre so that she could help women manage their weight and improve their overall health. Mehrmaa’s health advice has given hope to women who had lost faith in their recovery.

Through her work, Mehrmaa met an 18-year-old girl who had fallen into a well two years earlier, damaging her legs, arms and ribs in the accident. Mehrmaa treated the girl’s muscles by massaging them with olive and black cumin oil. In less than two months, the girl was able to move.

The girl’s father praised Mehrmaa’s skills at the local mosque. Men heard about her healing abilities and rushed to propose marriage to her.

The Taliban regime considers it shameful for an unmarried woman to work alone. When the morality police learnt that Mehrmaa had rejected all offers of marriage, they banned her from working.

Mehrmaa rejected a life of dependence on others.

“For the sake of my children, I want to earn my own honest living and not live under the humiliation of anyone,” she says.

Sometimes injustice is a greater pain than poverty.

“I will continue to fight against forced marriage for the sake of my children and in memory of my late husband, until my last breath,” Mehrmaa says.

Once again, Mehrmaa moved with her children, this time to the northeast of the country. She brought with her hope for justice and a better future.

The women of her new village encouraged Mehrmaa to stay and help provide healthcare at local clinics. They told her about the countless pregnant women who die before they can reach a hospital.

The women in the village speak of Mehrmaa with admiration, describing her as incredibly kind and capable.

“It’s as if there’s light in every finger of hers,” they say, using an Afghan proverb to describe someone who is highly skilled and brings much good to those around them.

Despite constant losses, threats, and marriage proposals, Mehrmaa keeps going. She fights for her children, for women in need, and for a better future. Mehrmaa envisions an Afghanistan where women can work freely, study, and take care of their families.

Global aid cuts mean malnourished families — already suffering under ‘gender-based lockdown’ — are being turned away from barren clinics

As the Taliban prepare to celebrate five years of rule on August 15, with parades expected of their suicide bomber squad on motorbikes and American equipment left by Nato forces when they abandoned Afghanistan in 2021, the country is on the brink of famine.

‘Gender-based lockdown’

Work became a means of survival

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