Five years after the Taliban barred girls from secondary education, more than 2.6 million Afghan girls remain excluded. The ban is enforced alongside broad restrictions on women’s lives and a reshaping of what boys are taught.
The Taliban have issued over 160 edicts restricting women’s public life and reduced core academic content for boys while expanding religious schools.
Humanitarian and health consequences include projected increases in maternal and infant deaths tied to shortages of trained female health workers.
The ban is official policy. Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid recently responded to a question about the restrictions by saying, "Perhaps now is not the time to discuss this issue." That answer has been consistent: there is no exception, no timeline, and no clear plan to restore education for secondary-age girls.
The educational restrictions sit alongside more than 160 decrees that limit women's freedom of movement, public participation, and employment. Enforcement has included arrests, imprisonment, beatings, torture, flogging, and in some cases death. Women who had completed years of schooling and university study found their qualifications rendered irrelevant overnight.
The consequences go beyond lost classroom time. UNICEF projects that a continued ban on girls' education will contribute to a shortage of trained female health workers, which is linked to higher maternal and infant mortality. The report cited estimated additional maternal and infant deaths by 2030 if the trend continues.
Afghan women, survivors, activists, and international allies have pushed for accountability. The U.N. Human Rights Council set up an independent investigative mechanism to gather and preserve evidence of crimes in Afghanistan, including abuses against women and girls. Advocates are calling for the United Nations to formally recognize gender apartheid as a crime against humanity and to move toward prosecution rather than leaving violations as documented files.
Campaigners have organized petitions and direct deliveries to UN leaders, asking member states to codify gender apartheid as an international crime and to pursue legal steps. They argue that global attention has faded even as the harms to a whole generation of girls continue to grow.
The story is both immediate and long-term: immediate because millions of girls are currently out of school, and long-term because the education and health gaps threaten to shape Afghanistan's social fabric and workforce for years. The reporting frames the ban as a deliberate policy choice by the ruling authorities, not an accidental consequence of conflict or instability.
As classrooms elsewhere fill this school year, the contrast between normal schooling routines and Afghanistan's restrictions is presented as a way to rekindle public attention and pressure. The piece asks readers to sign and share a petition demanding stronger U.N. action and to keep the issue visible in global conversations about human rights.
It's been nearly five years since the Taliban banned education for girls older than 12 in Afghanistan. Every day seems to bring a new law limiting them, but Afghan women are pushing back. Special correspondent Leila Molana-Allen and videographer Eric O'Connor visited a secret underground school in Kabul and sat down wi
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