Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada has issued a directive barring women from attending medical and semi-professional institutes, cutting off one of the last remaining avenues for higher education for women in Afghanistan. The order, delivered Monday by the Taliban’s minister of public health during a meeting with the heads of medical institutes in Kabul, was confirmed by multiple sources.

“Girls will no longer be allowed to study at these institutions,” one source told Amu TV, citing remarks made during the meeting.

After barring women from universities in December 2022, many young women turned to medical institutes as their last hope to continue their studies. Now, even that lifeline has been severed.

For more than three years, women in Afghanistan have been prohibited from attending secondary schools, leaving them increasingly cut off from professional training. This new ban effectively eliminates the possibility of women contributing to fields like healthcare, which faces a critical shortage of qualified professionals—particularly female doctors, nurses, and midwives essential for treating women in a deeply patriarchal society.

“This decision doesn’t just shatter the dreams of thousands of young women,” said Sahar*, 20, in Kabul. “It leaves Afghanistan without female doctors. Who will care for the women of this country now? A future without hope, without education, is no future at all,”

Decades of conflict and economic turmoil have left Afghanistan’s healthcare system on the brink, and the consequences are dire. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR), more than half of the population—roughly 23.7 million people—require humanitarian assistance. The World Food Programme (WFP) reports that more than 12 million Afghans face acute food insecurity, with one in four unsure where their next meal will come from. With female healthcare workers now effectively barred from training, countless Afghan women will lose access to essential medical care, deepening an already catastrophic humanitarian crisis.

International organizations and human rights advocates have condemned the Taliban’s policies, calling on the global community to pressure the regime to reverse course. But despite widespread condemnation, the Taliban has shown no signs of relenting in its systematic dismantling of women’s rights.