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Reprieve for Afghan women students facing forced return after US aid cuts

Yogita Limaye
South Asia and Afghanistan correspondent
AFP Afghan women students, with their heads covered with colourful scarves, take a test in a classroom in Ghazni, Afghanistan on 10 December, 2024AFP
The Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women, including banning them from universities

More than 80 Afghan women studying in Oman on US-funded scholarships - terminated last month due to Trump administration's sweeping cuts to foreign aid - have received a temporary reprieve.

A US State Department spokesperson has told the BBC that funding will continue until 30 June, 2025.

"This is great news, and we are very grateful," one student told the BBC, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisals. "But I hope there will be a permanent solution."

The women fled Taliban ruled Afghanistan to continue their studies abroad, but the abrupt freeze on US Agency for International Development (USAID) funds put them at risk of being sent back.

Since regaining power in Afghanistan nearly four years ago, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on women, including banning them from universities.

The students in Oman were pursuing graduate and post-graduate degrees under the Women's Scholarship Endowment (WSE), a USAID program launched in 2018 to fund studies in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.

On 28 February, they were informed their scholarships were ending and that they would be sent back to Afghanistan within two weeks, prompting "shock and tears".

"We are relieved now, but we are still deeply concerned about our future," a student said. "If the scholarship is not renewed, we will be left with no option but to return to Afghanistan, where we cannot study, and our safety could be under threat as well."

The US government has not responded to the BBC's inquiries on when a final decision will be made.

The BBC has also contacted the government of Oman to find out whether it is seeking alternative funding.

Afghanistan's Taliban government says it has been trying to resolve the issue of women's education, but has also defended its supreme leader's diktats, saying they are "in accordance with Islamic Sharia law".

It has cracked down on women protesting for education and work, with many activists beaten, detained and threatened.

Women in Afghanistan describe themselves as "dead bodies moving around" under the regime's policies.

Before the funding extension, a WSE staff member had told the BBC they were urgently "searching for alternative funding sources". Calling the situation "dangerous and devastating", the staff member warned that the students could face persecution and forced marriages upon return to Afghanistan.

The women, mostly in their 20s, qualified for scholarships in 2021 before the Taliban seized Afghanistan. Many continued their studies in Afghan universities until December 2022, when the Taliban banned higher education for women.

After 18 months in limbo, they said they fled to Pakistan last September.

USAID then facilitated their visas to Oman, where they arrived between October and November 2024.

The decision to slash American aid funding has come under the Trump administration, and been implemented by Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency.

Additional reporting by Aakriti Thapar and Andrew Clarance