More than 2.6 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied secondary education in the five years since the country’s de facto authorities took power in 2021, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has said. “Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where secondary and higher education are effectively closed to girls and women,” the report noted.
In a press release issued on August 14, 2026, UNICEF said that girls have been barred from formal education beyond Grade 6 since September 2021, while women have been prohibited from attending universities since December 2022. The agency described the cumulative impact as a “lifetime” of lost learning for girls who have spent five years outside classrooms.
UNICEF has warned that exclusion from school increases girls’ vulnerability to child marriage, child labour, exploitation, and gender-based violence. The agency has also linked continued educational exclusion to wider risks for Afghanistan’s social and economic future.
UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell stated: “Five years may be brief in a country’s history, but it is a defining period in a girl’s life.”
She further noted: “A classroom offers more than learning. It gives a young person a voice and the ability to reach their full potential. And it offers a shield against child labour, early marriage, and violence and abuse. When schools closed, that protection disappeared – at a time when girls needed it most.”
According to the official report, girls who are out of school face heightened protection risks, including child labour, abuse, early marriage, and gender-based violence. Those risks rise with household poverty and displacement, and both are widespread in Afghanistan, UNICEF said.
More than 2.7 million people have returned from Iran and Pakistan since 2023, the report said, adding, 60 per cent of them are children and young people.
The restrictions have affected not only secondary schooling but also higher education. According to UNICEF, Afghanistan is the only country where both secondary and university education are effectively shut to girls and women, leaving millions without a route to complete schooling or pursue degrees.
An analysis published by the global body in April 2026, ‘The Cost of Inaction on Girls’ Education and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Afghanistan’, noted that the country risks losing up to 20,000 women teachers and 5,400 female health workers by 2030. The number of female teachers in basic education has already fallen by more than 9 per cent, from nearly 73,000 in 2022 to around 66,000 in 2024. Female representation in the civil service fell from 21 per cent to 17.7 per cent between 2023 and 2025.
The same analysis estimated that restrictions on girls’ education and women’s employment are costing Afghanistan US$84 million a year in lost economic output, with losses compounding each year the restrictions remain.
According to UNICEF, the consequences also carry into the next generation. As the proportion of mothers without education rises, so do the risks of low birthweight, under-vaccination, and stunting among their children, adding further strain to a health system already under pressure.
