Relief set in the moment Hasina crossed the border into Iran. For two years, the Taliban barred the 24-year-old medical student from continuing her studies. Now, as part of a growing exodus of Afghan women who desperately want an education, Hasina is pursuing her degree in Tehran.
“I was terrified the Taliban would prevent me from leaving,” she says. Last year, they stopped 100 female Afghan students boarding a flight to take up places at university in the United Arab Emirates where they had won scholarships.
As a precaution, Hasina – whose full name has not been given to protect her identity – left Afghanistan with a tourist visa for Iran. She was accompanied by her father, they posed as a family going on a visit, but he returned home alone. Now, Hasina is enrolled at the Iran University of Medical Sciences in the capital, studying to become a surgeon.
It has been more than 1,000 days since the all-male Taliban government shut the door on girls’ education beyond the age of 12 after their August 2021 government takeover. Neighbouring Iran – which had previously denounced the Taliban’s ban on girls’ education – has opened it.
More than 40,000 Afghan students – most of them women – are now studying at university in Iran, according to the country’s deputy science minister for international affairs, Vahid Haddadi-Asl. More than 600,000 Afghan children are also enrolled in schools across the country, the Norwegian Refugee Council says, explaining that they can enrol in Iranian public schools regardless of their legal status because of a 2015 government decree.
“Since the Taliban came to power, the number of Afghan students has increased,” Iran’s ambassador to Germany, Mahmoud Farazandeh, tells the Guardian. “The issue of education, especially of women, is of great importance. The doors of Iranian universities are open to Afghan women and girls who have been deprived of education,” he says.
Accurate figures on the number of Afghans living in Iran are hard to come by – many cross through unofficial border points, complicating documentation. Estimates suggest that about a million Afghans have fled to Iran since the Taliban takeover. Many Afghan families left to ensure their children went to school. At least 1.5 million girls in Afghanistan are still barred from education.
With a shared language and many cultural similarities, Iran has become a last resort for many Afghan women determined to finish their studies. According to the World Bank, Iran’s female literacy rate sits at 85%, while Afghanistan’s reaches roughly 23% – despite heavy investment in the education sector during the 20 years of the US-led invasion.