The Taliban are “deliberately depriving” 1.4 million girls of education in Afghanistan since they seized power exactly three years ago, barring them from secondary schools, according to data released today by UNESCO.

“Afghanistan is today the only country in the world that denies access to education for girls over 12 years of age and for women,” reports the director-general of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Training Organization, Audrey Azoulet.

“The right to education cannot be compromised” or “negotiated” and “compromised”, she continues: “the international community must remain mobilized to ensure the unconditional reopening of schools and universities for girls and the women”.

Adding up the girls and women who left school before the fundamentalist Sunnis even returned to power, today 2.5 million Afghan schoolgirls lack secondary education, or in other words 80% of all school-age girls.

The Taliban have also banned women from teaching boys, and the country has a shortage of qualified teaching staff.

The restrictions they imposed are affecting the education system as a whole and have also led to a “dramatic decline” in enrollments in primary schools, including boys, as well as in higher education: it has fallen by 53% by 2021, UNESCO summarizes.

Behind this phenomenon, he worries about the possible increase in “child labor” and “early marriage” of children, as well as the lack of skills, which will harm the country’s development in the long run.

To circumvent the bans and offer alternatives to Afghan families, initiatives have been undertaken, locally and from abroad.

Paris-based NGO Begum Organization for Women launched a radio station in March 2021, followed by a cable and satellite TV network in March 2024.

Every day, six hours of educational television content is prepared by a team of ten Afghan journalists in the two languages ​​spoken in Afghanistan (Dari, Pashto) and broadcast via satellite.

UNESCO, which participates in initiatives such as this, stresses however that “nothing can replace education by living in the classrooms”.

The United Nations organization notes that “over 1,000” people, among them “780 women”, were trained to participate in a “literacy” campaign benefiting “over 55,000” children and young people, the majority of them girls, in almost “1,900 villages”. However, “the task remains enormous”, given the number of children and young people who have stopped learning.

After retaking power in August 2021, the Taliban imposed their own harsh interpretation of Islamic law, sharia, on the country, multiplying measures that kill women’s freedoms. The UN characterizes their policy as “gender apartheid”.

Women were prohibited from working in public administration. They were banned from entering parks, gardens, gyms, public baths, while they are required to cover their entire bodies when they leave their homes alone.

The policy pursued by the Taliban explains, at least in part, their complete isolation at the international level. Their de facto government has not been recognized by any other state in the world to date.