At least 1,4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied a secondary education since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, UNESCO, the United Nations' cultural agency, said on Thursday.
"In just three years, the de facto authorities have nearly erased two decades of steady educational progress in Afghanistan, and the future of an entire generation is now at risk," the statement said.
The Taliban are marking three years since their forces captured Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, on August 15, 2021, after the US-backed government fell and its leaders fled into exile, Radio Azadi, the Afghan service of Radio Free Europe (RSE), reported ).
Since the Taliban's return to power, women have been pushed out of public life, banned from many jobs, as well as from visiting parks, gyms and public baths, and barred from secondary and higher education.
Those restrictions, the United Nations says, amount to "gender apartheid."
Millions of girls are denied the right to education
Almost 2,5 million girls are now deprived of their right to education, representing 80 percent of Afghanistan's school-age girls, UNESCO said. That's an increase of 300.000 from the UN agency's previous April 2023 figure.
"As a result of bans imposed by de facto authorities, at least 1,4 million girls have been deliberately denied secondary education as of 2021," UNESCO said.
Access to primary education has also changed sharply, with 1,1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, the UN agency added. The government's decision to ban female teachers from teaching boys, as well as the lack of incentives for parents to send their children to school, was blamed for the decline.
UNESCO stated that it was "alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasing dropout rate, which could lead to an increase in child labor and early marriage."
Enrollment in higher education is equally worrisome, the announcement states, adding that as of 2021, the number of students has decreased by 53 percent.
UNESCO Director-General Audrey Azoulay called on the international community to continue to engage "to ensure the unconditional reopening of schools and universities for Afghan girls and women."
Lack of access to education was among the main points of criticism of Afghans against the Taliban authorities.
"There are those who are not literate enough, and more importantly, part of society, women, are deprived of education, which is a big problem for the people of Afghanistan," a resident of the northern province of Balkh, who asked not to be named, told Radio Azadi. reasons.
"Issues of education - women's education and work - and their participation at the national and international level have been completely nullified and pushed to the margins," said a woman from Kabul, who also asked not to be named.
Three years of Taliban rule
The Taliban celebrate their return to power and mid-August, around the date of the fall of Kabul, and at the end of the month, when the last US-led international troops left Afghanistan.
The withdrawal, agreed by the US and the Taliban on February 29, 2020, saw the radical Islamist movement return to power 20 years after it was ousted by US forces following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the US.
The Taliban government is still not recognized by any country.
International humanitarian organizations have warned that millions of Afghans are struggling in "one of the largest and most complex humanitarian crises in the world, three years after the change of government".
"Heavily dependent on humanitarian aid, Afghans are trapped in cycles of poverty, displacement and despair," said a statement from 10 humanitarian groups, including Save the Children, World Vision, Islamic Relief Worldwide and the International Rescue Committee.
Women and girls are among the hardest hit by this humanitarian crisis, Human Rights Watch said. The Taliban have created "the world's most serious women's rights crisis," the organization said on August 11.
Source: RSE
