Taliban wipes out decades of progress as 2.4M Afghan girls remain locked out of school, UN agency says

Five years aft the Taliban reclaimed reclaimed Afghanistan, 2.4 cardinal girls stay locked retired of secondary school, wiping distant decades of advancement and leaving a procreation of young women without entree to the classroom.

Afghanistan is present the lone state successful the satellite that formally prohibits girls and women from receiving an acquisition beyond the superior level, according to UNESCO, which issued a caller telephone Tuesday for the "immediate and unconditional" restoration of their close to education.

The United Nations bureau warned that the consequences of the Taliban's policies present scope acold beyond the classroom, with women barred from astir paid jobs and public-facing professions and facing restrictions connected their quality to question without a antheral guardian.

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Afghan girls enactment successful a acquisition astatine Tajrobawai Girls High School, successful Herat, Afghanistan, Thursday, Nov. 25, 2021. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)

"Women person been erased from nationalist life, and arsenic a caller procreation of girls grows without an education, their aboriginal becomes progressively dark," UNESCO said successful a statement.

The Taliban swept backmost into powerfulness connected Aug. 15, 2021, arsenic U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan aft 2 decades of war.

The Taliban soon barred girls from secondary schools and aboriginal expanded the restrictions to universities, employment and different areas of nationalist life.

Despite years of unit from the United Nations, humanitarian groups, quality rights advocates and respective Islamic countries, the Taliban has refused to assistance the acquisition restrictions and has maintained that the contented is simply a home matter, according to The Associated Press.

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The Taliban has refused to assistance its acquisition restrictions connected girls and women contempt longstanding planetary pressure. (© UNESCO/Navid Rahi)

The interaction has been a melodramatic reversal of the acquisition gains made by Afghan girls during the erstwhile 2 decades.

While girls had severely constricted entree to schooling successful 2001, astir 1 cardinal were enrolled successful secondary acquisition by 2021, according to UNESCO.

Five years later, an estimated 2.4 cardinal girls are excluded from secondary education.

"Five years is not a impermanent interruption successful a child's education," Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO's programme coordinator for acquisition successful emergencies, said during a video quality league Tuesday, according to The AP. "It is intelligibly astir an full secondary schoolhouse cycle."

UNESCO warned that denying acquisition to girls portion restricting women's quality to enactment could deepen Afghanistan's already terrible economical problems.

Nearly fractional of Afghanistan's colonisation lives beneath the poorness line, according to UNESCO, which said preventing women from studying and moving further limits their quality to enactment their families and lend to the country's economy.

The bureau besides warned that excluding girls from schoolhouse tin harm their intelligence and carnal well-being and summation the hazard of aboriginal marriage.

The effects could besides scope Afghan boys.

UNESCO said the Taliban's prohibition connected pistillate teachers teaching boys is worsening teacher shortages and undermining the prime of acquisition crossed Afghanistan.

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Women deterioration burqas successful Kabul, Afghanistan connected May 7, 2022. (Sayed Khodaiberdi Sadat/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

With ceremonial secondary and higher acquisition closed to women and girls, UNESCO says it has turned to community-based education, literacy and skills improvement programs and psychosocial enactment to support them learning.

Nearly 70,000 radical person participated successful UNESCO's programs, with women accounting for 73% of the learners, according to the agency.

Some literacy and skills classes instrumentality spot successful assemblage spaces and successful the homes of facilitators with the cognition of authorities, according to The AP. More than 1,000 literacy facilitators are involved, astir of whom person been trained by UNESCO and its partners.

UNESCO said a caller survey recovered grounds that its literacy and skills programs person helped summation household incomes and amended livelihoods.

The bureau acknowledged, however, that specified efforts cannot regenerate ceremonial schooling.

"Afghanistan's girls and women person the close to learn, to work, to determination freely, and to signifier their ain futures," UNESCO said, adding that "the satellite indispensable not look distant until their quality rights are restored."

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UNESCO said it would proceed moving with section communities and partners to support alternate opportunities for Afghan women and girls portion pressing for the acquisition prohibition to beryllium lifted.

"UNESCO continues to telephone for the contiguous and unconditional restoration of girls and women's close to secondary and higher education," Jaberian said Tuesday. "It is not negotiable. It's a basal quality close and we reiterate that determination is nary substitute for this."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.