About 2.4 million Afghan girls remain shut out of secondary education, five years after the Taliban returned to power, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) said on Tuesday, calling for the restrictions to be lifted immediately.
Afghanistan remains the only country where girls and women are formally prohibited from secondary and higher education, UNESCO said.
“Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls and women are formally banned from secondary and higher education,” Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO’s program coordinator for education in emergencies, said in a video news conference.
“Five years is not a temporary interruption in a child’s education. It is clearly almost an entire secondary school cycle.”
Jaberian called for the restrictions to be removed without conditions.
“UNESCO continues to call for the immediate and unconditional restoration of girls and women’s right to secondary and higher education. It is not negotiable. It’s a basic human right and we reiterate that there is no substitute for this.”
The Taliban seized control of Afghanistan on Aug. 15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO troops withdrew after two decades of war.
The group soon barred girls from secondary schools and later extended restrictions to universities, employment and other areas of public life, leaving women and girls increasingly excluded from society.
The Taliban has defended the restrictions as an internal matter despite repeated appeals from the United Nations, humanitarian organisations, rights groups and some Muslim-majority countries.
UNESCO said the measures had undone much of the progress Afghanistan made in expanding access to education over the previous two decades. In 2001, girls’ access to schooling was severely restricted, but by 2021 nearly 1 million girls were enrolled in secondary education.
“Afghanistan had made really major progress in expanding girls’ access to education,” Jaberian said. “But unfortunately, much of that progress now has been completely reversed.”
UNESCO said it continues to support education programmes in Afghanistan, including community-based learning, literacy and skills training.
More than 1,000 literacy facilitators, most trained by UNESCO and its partners, conduct classes in community settings, including homes, with the knowledge of the authorities, the agency said.
“While the restriction remains, we cannot abandon Afghan learners,” Jaberian said. “UNESCO work with communities and our partners from the communities to preserve every possible pathway to learning.”
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