Greater than 80 Afghan ladies finding out in Oman on US-funded scholarships – terminated final month as a result of Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to international assist – have obtained a short lived reprieve.
A US State Division spokesperson has advised the BBC that funding will proceed till 30 June, 2025.
“That is nice information, and we’re very grateful,” one scholar advised the BBC, talking anonymously for worry of reprisals. “However I hope there shall be a everlasting answer.”
The ladies fled Taliban dominated Afghanistan to proceed their research overseas, however the abrupt freeze on US Company for Worldwide Improvement (USAID) funds put them vulnerable to being despatched again.
Since regaining energy in Afghanistan almost 4 years in the past, the Taliban has imposed draconian restrictions on ladies, together with banning them from universities.
The scholars in Oman had been pursuing graduate and post-graduate levels underneath the Girls’s Scholarship Endowment (WSE), a USAID program launched in 2018 to fund research in science, know-how, engineering, and arithmetic.
On 28 February, they had been knowledgeable their scholarships had been ending and that they might be despatched again to Afghanistan inside two weeks, prompting “shock and tears”.
“We’re relieved now, however we’re nonetheless deeply involved about our future,” a scholar mentioned. “If the scholarship shouldn’t be renewed, we shall be left with no possibility however to return to Afghanistan, the place we can’t research, and our security might be underneath menace as properly.”
The US authorities has not responded to the BBC’s inquiries on when a last resolution shall be made.
The BBC has additionally contacted the federal government of Oman to search out out whether or not it’s in search of various funding.
Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities says it has been making an attempt to resolve the problem of ladies’s training, however has additionally defended its supreme chief’s diktats, saying they’re “in accordance with Islamic Sharia legislation”.
It has cracked down on ladies protesting for training and work, with many activists overwhelmed, detained and threatened.
Girls in Afghanistan describe themselves as “lifeless our bodies transferring round” underneath the regime’s insurance policies.
Earlier than the funding extension, a WSE workers member had advised the BBC they had been urgently “looking for various funding sources”. Calling the scenario “harmful and devastating”, the workers member warned that the scholars may face persecution and compelled marriages upon return to Afghanistan.
The ladies, principally of their 20s, certified for scholarships in 2021 earlier than the Taliban seized Afghanistan. Many continued their research in Afghan universities till December 2022, when the Taliban banned increased training for girls.
After 18 months in limbo, they mentioned they fled to Pakistan final September.
USAID then facilitated their visas to Oman, the place they arrived between October and November 2024.
The choice to slash American assist funding has come underneath the Trump administration, and been carried out by Elon Musk’s Division of Authorities Effectivity.
Extra reporting by Aakriti Thapar and Andrew Clarance
