KANDAHAR: Teenage females study religious scriptures as the disembodied voice of a male professor blares over a loudspeaker in a frigid classroom in the southern Afghan province of Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban organisation.
In the Taalum Ul Islam Ladies’ Madrassa, or seminary, where male teachers are barred from overhearing the voices of female pupils in person, students alternately send queries to the expert on the class laptop.
According to staff members who granted Reuters rare access to the madrassa in December, the number of students at the institution in Kandahar city has roughly doubled to around 400 in the past year due to the Taliban administration’s decision to prohibit girls and women from the majority secular high schools and universities.
