London –
When the Taliban suddenly shut nursing and midwifery schools across Afghanistan this month, a handful of students in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif removed their white coats and set them alight in protest.
“I saw every single dream of mine go up in flames,” said trainee nurse Maary Mohibian as she recalled watching her friends burn their uniforms.
Angry students said the closures had abruptly left thousands of girls without a future and would have serious implications for women’s health care in a country that has some of the world’s highest maternal and infant mortality rates.
