Afghan universities reopen to female students but with strict rules on mixing

The Taliban administration has not officially announced its plan for Temperatures have plunged well below zero in the coldest parts of Afghanistan during a winter plagued by food shortages and a lack of foreign aid that was withdrawn when the Taliban resumed power on August 15.Under their previous rule from 1996 to 2001, the hardline Islamist Taliban barred women and girls from education. But the group has been The international community has made education of girls and women a key part of its demands as the Taliban seek more foreign aid and the unfreezing of overseas assets.Aid groups have raised the alarm that the stalled financial system and a stark drop in foreign funding that used to form the backbone of the economy are creating a humanitarian catastrophe in the country, already battered by decades of war.The United Nations late on Tuesday praised the inclusion of female students at public universities.”Let’s all support the return of Afghan young female and male students to the universities across Afghanistan,” the UN’s Secretary General’s Special Envoy for Afghanistan, Deborah Lyons, added in a Tweet.”Supporters can consider a range of scholarship programs and ongoing support to female and male professors,” she said.An education official who asked not be named because he was not authorized to speak to the media said universities had been given different options to keep female students isolated, including separated classes and staggered operating hours.On Wednesday, the US Treasury Department said international banks can transfer money to Afghanistan for humanitarian purposes, and aid groups are allowed to pay teachers and healthcare workers at state-run institutions without fear of breaching sanctions on the Taliban, according to Reuters.The UN said more than half the country’s 39 million people suffer extreme hunger and the economy, education and social services are facing collapse. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres last week warned Afghanistan was “hanging by a thread.”Reuters contributed reporting