The Taliban have excluded girls from Afghan secondary schools, after they ordered only boys and male teachers to return to the classroom, the BBC reports.
A statement from the Islamist group saying secondary classes would resume made no mention of girls or women.
A statement issued ahead of Afghan schools reopening on Saturday said: “All male teachers and students should attend their educational institutions.”
Secondary schools are usually for students aged between 13 and 18. Most schools are also segregated, which would make it easy for the Taliban to close down schools for girls.
Despite Taliban promises it is the latest sign Afghanistan is returning to the harsh rule of the 1990s.
In another development, on Friday the Taliban appeared to have shut down the women’s affairs ministry and replaced it with a department that once enforced strict religious doctrines.
During their rule between 1996 and 2001, the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice was responsible for deploying so-called morality police on to the streets to enforce the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Islamic religious law, known as Sharia.
