What happened to Afghanistan’s female academics?

By Shahira Shahir, Senior Research Assistant, Cardiff School of Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University
Shaista Noor, Senior Lecturer in Business, Teesside University
Xiaoni Ren, Senior Lecturer in Human Resource Management, Cardiff Metropolitan University

Picture this: you have spent decades building a career. You have a master’s degree. You have taught hundreds of students. You walk into work every morning with a sense of purpose. Then, almost overnight, the gates close. You are told you cannot come back. Not because of anything you did, but simply because of you are a woman.

This is what happened to female academics across Afghanistan after the Taliban returned to power in August 2021.

We conducted interviews with 12 Afghan…

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