A Generation Stolen: The Human Cost of Banned Girls’ Schools in Afghanistan
Afghanistan ban on girls education 2025 is one of the most dire human rights violations on earth within the last few decades. As a result of Taliban re-inauguration in August 2021, nearly 1.5 million girls have been kept out of university and secondary school. The systematic exclusion not only reverses two decades of gains in education but makes Afghanistan the only country on this earth that has a state-imposed ban on secondary education for girls.
Prior to 2021, the education system in Afghanistan had been improving slowly. In 1991, over 230,000 girls were enrolled in school, and girls made up almost 40% of all Afghan students in 2018. Women‘s higher education had improved consistently, and women’s literacy had nearly doubled. The return of the Taliban effectively wiped out such progress, reflecting their 1996–2001 rule, when schooling for girls after puberty was also prohibited.
The effects of four years out of school go far beyond learning loss. A whole generation is being robbed of its intellectual independence, professional dreams, and citizenship, which are the foundation for lasting peace and national progress.
Societal impacts beyond the classroom
Girls’ education is also linked to broader economic benefits directly. Afghanistan loses, according to UNICEF and World Bank estimates, approximately 2.5% of GDP every year due to the prohibition of education, a financial loss of some $5.4 billion in 2025 alone. Not only does female labor force participation fall, and so productivity reduces, but it also raises dependency and household poverty as inflation and unemployment increase.
This economic loss also finds expression in social infrastructure. The health sector, which relies heavily on women specialists for prenatal and pediatric care, is suffering a severe dearth of staff. Thousands of female doctors, nurses, and midwives have been chased out or deterred from education lines, further destabilizing Afghanistan’s fragile health infrastructure.
Health and social repercussions
Girl exclusion from schooling has a direct link with increased early and forced marriages. Recent statistics place 28% of Afghan girls in wedlock before the age of 18. With pathways to education shut, poor families struggling to meet ends are likely to marry off daughters, with devastating health and psychological effects. It also undoes the progress in reducing maternal mortality, now estimated to be among the world’s highest.
Adding to the crisis is mental illness in girls ranging from depression to trauma—on the rise, especially in adolescents who are aware of the opportunities that have been denied to them. The crisis deepens with limited access to counseling or havens for expression and healing.
The policy rationale and its failure to reflect realities
The Taliban have also justified the prohibition on girls’ schooling in religious responsibilities and Afghan societal norms. This reasoning is opposed to the general view among Islamic thinkers globally, who emphasize that education is both a male and female Islamic right. Even among Afghans, public opinion is completely in support of girls’ education, and recent polls have shown more than 90% of Afghan citizens both in conservative areas and otherwise are supportive of girls’ right to attend school.
The regime’s labeling of subjects like civics, literature, and science as “Western impositions” discounts Afghan academic tradition in these fields over centuries. Manipulation of religion for politics devalues Afghanistan’s cultural heritage and universal Islamic consensus that education is a good thing.
Political control and international bargaining
Experts argue that the Taliban’s prohibition on education serves a double purpose. Domestically, it mobilizes domestic power by uniting with hardline forces, and internationally, it employs the ban as leverage to bargain recognition and support. While several officials of the Taliban have made vacillating commitments to “open schools when the time is right,” no precise parameters or timelines have been placed on the bargaining table.
International diplomatic efforts have largely failed to win concessions. Donor countries are nevertheless disheartened by the Taliban’s inability to honor its previous commitments on education and gender equality despite continued distributions of aid for humanitarian relief.
Erosion of international commitments
The prohibition of education in Afghanistan is in contradiction with some international obligations. It violates the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the Convention for the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all of which Afghanistan has ratified.
It also stops progress in respect to Sustainable Development Goal 4, ensuring inclusive and equitable quality education for all by 2030. In 2025, Afghanistan is ranked 177 out of 177 in the Women, Peace, and Security Index, which is an indicator of the depth of institutional disintegration along gender lines.
Efforts by international institutions like UNESCO, UNICEF, and the UN Human Rights Council have borne strong denunciations but little policy change on the ground. The persistent rights gap between Afghanistan and international norms continues to widen.
Voices from the ground: resistance and resilience
Despite attempts to bar them from being educated by the Taliban, Afghan girls still pursue education through covert networks, online classes, and unauthorized community-sponsored programs. These efforts, led by former teachers or activists, are acts of resistance to state policy but remain vulnerable to surveillance, raids, and arrest, particularly in urban centers like Kabul, Herat, and Kandahar.
UN Women’s Sofia Calltorp noted that
“It is clear: despite the bans, the Afghan people want their daughters to exercise their right to education.”
Reports from provinces like Balkh and Badakhshan state that families continue to protest bans and request schooling from local leaders.
Limited alternatives and dangerous concessions
Certain Taliban-approved Islamic madrasas are currently the sole available spaces for education for girls, providing minimal religious education but not teaching science, mathematics, or language classes. These institutions are not able to replace full secondary education, nor prepare students for employment or entry to university. Critics fear that validating these schools risks admitting a permanent decline in the standard of education.
This author has raised the issue, highlighting the devastating consequences of the Afghan ban on girls’ schools and the fundamental human rights at issue in denying them access to education:
Their comments highlight the importance of international responsibility and support mechanisms that enhance Afghan civil society, specifically those who work to protect education under threat.
Afghanistan’s ongoing prohibition of girls’ continued education shows up more than a policy misstep, it shows up a systemic attack on one generation’s future. While international institutions weigh humanitarian assistance, acknowledgment, and engagement policy, the question is whether international commitment can be translated into real protections. What is being lost currently could take decades to recover, if recovery is even conceivable. The next few years will challenge the world to prove that it is committed to making education a universal right rather than a privilege dependent on regime choice.
