Diotima Schuck
9 February 2023

Gradually denied access to education in Afghanistan, women are no longer able to attend the country’s art centres following the Taliban’s last ban in December 2022. The Art Newspaper took stock of the situation on 9 February 2023, two months later.

The bans began with the country’s public facilities, to which Afghan women have been denied access since 2021. Faced with the impossibility of finding work with government organisations or to go to universities, they naturally turned to private centres, which have seen their number of students increase in recent months.

The vast majority of their students were women. Since the implementation of the new law by the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, however, teachers and institutions fear for their future and that of the arts, due to lack of remuneration and students. It is also the next generations of artists that are threatened, and may disappear completely.

art centre