The Taliban’s ban on women receiving above a secondary has deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of education since 2021, according to research from the United Nations.
The Afghan government first banned girls from attending secondary school in March 2022, later going on to prohibit women from attending university classes in December of that year. As a result of the bans, girls over the age of twelve have had education opportunities restricted, with 300,000 more girls being affected by the ban since the U.N.’s last count in April of 2023, according to a press release from the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls,” the press release states.
The Biden administration withdrew U.S. forces from Afghanistan in 2021, ceding the country to the Taliban. The Taliban had promised upon taking power in the country that schools would stay open as long as they were separated by sex before walking back on that promise.
“UNESCO is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labor and early marriage,” the press release says.
Aside from banning girls from having access to secondary and higher education, the Taliban has also banned females from teaching male students, according to the press release. This change has contributed to the drop in total education enrollment in primary schools from 6.8 million boys and girls in 2019 to 5.7 million in 2022.
“In just three years, the de facto authorities have almost wiped out two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan, and the future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy,” the press release states.
Afghanistan remains the only nation that is actively banning women from accessing secondary and higher education, according to the press release.
