In Afghanistan, five years after the Taliban's return to power, 2.4 million girls remain formally barred from secondary and higher education — a distinction that makes Afghanistan the only nation on Earth to have codified such a prohibition. UNESCO, bearing witness to the erasure of two decades of hard-won progress, has issued a solemn call for the unconditional restoration of girls' right to learn. What is at stake is not merely schooling, but the full participation of half a population in the unfolding of their own lives.
2.4M Afghan girls barred from secondary school under Taliban, UNESCO warns
2.4 million Afghan girls denied access to secondary education, losing critical years of schooling and future economic opportunity during formative years.