The Taliban government has deliberately denied schooling to 1.4 million Afghan girls through its bans, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said on Thursday.
In September 2021, the Taliban regime banned education for girls above class six claiming that it does not comply with its interpretation of the Sharia, or Islamic law. This came a month after the group took control of Afghanistan.
The number of girls who were denied access to secondary education has risen by 3,00,000 since the previous count in April 2023, said the specialised UN agency. This was the result of more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.
Unesco added: “If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80% of Afghan school-age girls.”
The number of children enrolled in primary education has fallen drastically since 2021, according to Unesco data. “Afghanistan had only 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022, compared with 6.8 million in 2019,” the organisation said.
The fall in primary school enrolment has been caused by the Taliban’s decision to prohibit female teachers from teaching boys, which has exacerbated the shortage of teachers.
The decrease in enrolment numbers has also been caused by the lack of incentive for parents to send their children to school “in an increasingly difficult socio-economic context”, Unesco said.
The organisation said that it was alarmed by the “harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labour and early marriage”.
In less than three years, the Taliban regime had “almost wiped out two decades of steady progress for education” and the “future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy”, said Unesco.
Afghanistan is the only country where secondary and higher education for girls and women is banned.
The Taliban regime is yet to be recognised by any country, even though several governments globally engage with it.
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