About 2.4 million Afghan girls have been denied access to secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation has said.
UNESCO, in a statement on Tuesday, condemned the restriction and urged the Taliban administration to immediately allow girls to return to secondary schools.
The UN agency said the number of girls affected by the ban increased by about 200,000 in the past year and could rise to nearly four million by 2030 if the policy remains in place.
It described the restrictions as gender-based discrimination and warned that they were reversing two decades of progress in access to education in Afghanistan.
The ban on secondary education is part of wider restrictions imposed on women and girls in the country. Women are also barred from attending universities, working in many sectors and accessing some public spaces.
According to UNESCO estimates, the restrictions on women’s and girls’ education could cost Afghanistan’s economy about $9.6bn by 2066.
The country’s education system is also facing pressure from damaged infrastructure, natural disasters and the return of more than seven million displaced Afghans since 2023.
UNESCO said the situation had contributed to a wider education crisis, with more than half of Afghanistan’s primary school-age children currently out of school.
The agency called on the Taliban authorities to reverse the restrictions, warning that continued exclusion of girls and women from education would have serious consequences for Afghanistan’s social and economic development.
