UNICEF said 2.6 million Afghan girls have been kept out of secondary school in the five years since the Taliban took power. The agency noted that Afghanistan is the only country where secondary education is closed to girls. These restrictions also cost the nation $84 million in lost economic output.
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More than 2.6 million girls in Afghanistan have been kept out of secondary school in the five years since the Taliban took power, UNICEF said on Friday. The UN children's agency pointed out that Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where secondary and higher education is effectively closed to girls and women.
How the restrictions unfolded
Girls have been barred from formal schooling beyond grade six since September 2021. Women were shut out of universities in December 2022, a little over a year later.
A cost that reaches beyond classrooms
UNICEF said the impact goes well beyond the girls themselves. Its analysis estimates that curbs on girls' education and women's employment cost Afghanistan about $84 million in lost economic output every year, and the loss grows the longer the restrictions stay in place.
The agency also flagged the pressure created by mass returns. More than 2.7 million people have come back from Iran and Pakistan since 2023, and 60 per cent of them are children and young people. Many arrive in a country where older girls have no school to attend.
UNICEF added that a classroom offers more than lessons. It also provides protection, and that safety net disappeared when schools closed, at a time when girls needed it most.
What UNICEF is still doing
Despite the restrictions, the agency says its work on the ground continues. In 2025, over 3.7 million children in public schools received emergency education support. Another 442,000 children took part in community-based learning, two-thirds of them girls. UNICEF also built or rehabilitated 232 schools.
Fresh appeal to the authorities
UNICEF executive director Catherine Russell called on the Taliban authorities to lift the restrictions and allow all girls and women to return to schools and universities immediately. She echoed an appeal made earlier by the UN Secretary-General.
Larger numbers from June
The figures sit alongside what the UN told the Security Council in June. Georgette Gagnon, acting head of the UN mission in Afghanistan, said around 3.8 million girls aged 7 to 18 are out of school, including the 2.6 million adolescents barred from secondary education. She said about 250,000 more girls are excluded from secondary schooling each year and warned of a "lost generation."
With the ban now in its fifth year, UNICEF says the crisis will be felt for generations.
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