The Taliban government continues to take measures against women. The new ban concerns Afghan female students who wish to leave the country to study in Dubai.

“After the Taliban closed universities to women, my only hope was to get a scholarship to help me study abroad.”20-year-old Afghan student Natkai, whose name has been changed for her safety, tells the BBC.

She maintains that she continued to study even though there was little chance that she would ever attend a university in her home country. She was then given a scholarship to study at the University of Dubai in the United Arab Emirates by billionaire Emirati businessman Sheikh Khalaf Ahmad Al Habtoor.

The scholarships for Afghan women were announced in December 2022 after the Taliban banned women from university.

According to information from the BBC, a total of 100 Afghan women managed to win these scholarships. Some Afghan female students living abroad have already traveled to Dubai.

On Wednesday July 23, Natkai said goodbye to her family and left for the airport anyway he never got to travel since Natkai is one of at least 60 girls turned away from the airport.

The Taliban have banned solo travel for women and allow them to go abroad only with their spouses or a relative male companion such as a brother, uncle or father.

The University of Dubai and Mr Al Habtoor confirmed that the girls were unable to go. Mr Al Habtoor posted a video message in English on the X platform criticizing the Taliban’s principles, saying men and women are equal in Islam.

Female suicides are on the rise in Afghanistan

Since the Taliban took control of Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, there has been an alarming increase in the number of women killing themselves or attempting to kill themselves, according to data collected from public hospitals and mental health clinics in a third of Afghanistan’s provinces .

Taliban authorities have not released figures on suicides and have banned health workers from sharing updated statistics in many provinces, doctors say, according to the Guardian website. Health workers have however agreed to share personal information from August 2021 to August 2022 to highlight the criticality of the situation. These figures show that Afghanistan has become one of the few countries in the world where more women than men kill themselves.

UN officials and human rights activists have sounded the alarm over the sharp increase in the number of women attempting suicide. They have explicitly linked it to the Taliban’s restrictions on every aspect of women’s existence, from a ban on education above the elementary level to a ban on entering parks, baths and other public spaces.

Data from health care providers shows that of the 11 provinces surveyed, in only one did men account for the majority of deaths and suicide attempts. In all other provinces, women and girls made up the majority of those who either killed or attempted suicide with some girls doing so while still in their teens. Overall, women made up more than three-quarters of recorded suicide deaths and treated survivors.