2.4 million Afghan girls shut out of secondary school 5 years after Taliban takeover, UN says

Five years after the Taliban took control of Afghanistan, an estimated 2.4 million girls remain barred from attending secondary school, according to a recent report by UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization. Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO's program coordinator for education in emergencies, emphasized that this exclusion is not a temporary setback but rather an almost complete denial of a child's secondary school education.

She reiterated that this is a grave violation of women and girls' fundamental rights and called for an immediate restoration of their right to education, stating that it is not negotiable and a basic human right. The Taliban, which assumed power on August 15, 2021, imposed the ban on girls' secondary education shortly after their takeover and later extended it to higher education and employment, effectively sidelining women and girls from public life.

Despite numerous appeals from various international organizations, including the United Nations, humanitarian groups, and human rights advocates, the Taliban has maintained the ban, arguing that it is a domestic issue to be decided within Afghanistan.