UNICEF calls on Taliban to lift ban on girls’ education as new school year begins in Afghanistan

Afghan school girls attend their classroom on the first day of the new school year, in Kabul, on March 25, 2023. File
| Photo Credit: AP

The United Nations (UN) children’s agency on Saturday (March 22, 2025) urged Afghanistan‘s Taliban rulers to immediately lift a lingering ban on girls’ education to save the future of millions who have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

The appeal by UNICEF comes as a new school year began in Afghanistan without girls beyond sixth grade. The ban, said the agency, has deprived 4,00,000 more girls of their right to education, bringing the total to 2.2 million.

Taliban’s education ban forces girls and women into ‘dull’ online classes

Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education, with the Taliban justifying the ban saying it doesn’t comply with their interpretation of Sharia, or Islamic law.

“For more than three years, the rights of girls in Afghanistan have been violated,” Catherine Russell, UNICEF executive director, said in a statement. “All girls must be allowed to return to school now. If these capable, bright young girls continue to be denied an education, then the repercussions will last for generations.”

“A ban on the education of girls will harm the future of millions of Afghan girls,” she said, adding that if the ban persists until 2030, “more than four million girls will have been deprived of their right to education beyond primary school.”

The consequences, she added, will be “catastrophic.” Ms. Russell warned that the decline in female doctors and midwives will leave women and girls without crucial medical care. This situation is projected to result in an estimated 1,600 additional maternal deaths and more than 3,500 infant deaths. “These are not just numbers, they represent lives lost and families shattered,” she said.

Taliban insist Afghan women’s rights are protected as U.N. says their bans cannot be ignored

The Afghan Taliban government earlier this year skipped a Pakistan-hosted global conference where Nobel laureate Malala Yousafzai condemned the state of women’s and girl’s rights in Afghanistan as gender apartheid.