It has been around 1,605 days since the Taliban, about one month after taking power in August 2021, issued the order banning girls above grade 6 from continuing their education — a ban that remains firmly in place today, leaving millions of Afghan girls without access to secondary or higher schooling.
According to multiple reports from UNICEF, about 2.2 million adolescent girls are currently excluded from secondary education in Afghanistan, and if the ban persists through 2030, that number could rise to over four million deprived of schooling beyond primary level.
“By the end of 2025, more than 2.2 million adolescent girls will have been excluded from education. … Their lives, futures, hopes and dreams are hanging in the balance,” UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said in a statement, warning that the situation exacerbates the ongoing humanitarian crisis, harms mental health, and limits girls’ opportunities.
UNICEF notes that excluding girls from education also undermines Afghanistan’s health and development systems, potentially leading to shortages of trained female health workers, which could increase maternal and infant mortality. According to estimates cited by UNICEF, this exclusion could be linked to about 1,600 additional maternal deaths and over 3,500 infant deaths annually due to lack of qualified female practitioners.
The U.N. agencies also highlight broader impacts beyond schooling: education protects girls from early marriage and associated health risks. A major UNICEF and UNESCO joint statement in January 2026 reaffirmed that Afghanistan currently stands as the only country in the world where girls are banned from education beyond grade 6, and emphasized the urgency of reversing this policy to support the nation’s future.
UNICEF data also show that about 3.7 million children in Afghanistan are out of school, with roughly 60 % of them girls, reflecting a deepening learning crisis that affects all levels of society.
Campaigners for girls’ education in Afghanistan say the ban has effectively launched an “undeclared war” on modern education, particularly for girls, and urge the international community to treat the ongoing exclusion as unacceptable rather than normal. Afghanistan’s education restrictions remain a stark symbol of the country’s rollback of women’s rights.
