For five years, girls above sixth grade have been barred from classrooms, making Afghanistan the only country in the world where girls are banned from secondary and higher education.
The ban was initially said to be a temporary measure but has now defined half a decade of life for millions of Afghan girls. For them, these years were supposed to be spent in classrooms, preparing for university, building careers, and planning their futures. Instead, they have been spending time waiting.
According to United Nations data, 2.6 million girls have been denied their right to education since the ban began, a policy that experts warn will have long-term consequences not only for girls, but for Afghanistan’s economy, health system, and future development. UNICEF has warned that if the ban continues, millions more girls will be deprived of education by the end of the decade. The ban has already dismantled the pipeline for female doctors and midwives. The maternal and infant mortality rate has already gone up and is only expected to go higher.
When looking beyond the statistics, we see the actual lives that have been put on pause for 5 years.
Many girls who were in sixth grade when the ban began should now be graduating from high school or attending university. Instead, they remain at home, trying to continue their education through informal or online means, knowing that nothing can replace a classroom. One student explained that she would have been preparing for her final year of school by now, but after years of waiting, she has begun to lose hope in the future she once planned.
Others describe the psychological toll of being excluded from education for years. One student said that being away from school for so long had caused depression and a deep sense of uncertainty about the future, adding that five years is “a lifetime” to be kept from education.
Afghan women who shared their testimonies describe losing both their jobs and their ability to continue their education, leaving them feeling that their role and identity in society had been taken away.
“The deeper pain is the loss of security and freedom, waking up every day with the thought that your future is uncertain,” one Afghan woman said in testimony collected from inside the country.
“Watching the sisters and daughters of this land be deprived of their right to education… These changes have not only altered our personal lives; they have wounded the soul of our society.”
Many women also warned that the longer the ban continues, the more dangerous its effects become. There are growing concerns about forced marriages, poverty, mental health, and the normalization of a system in which girls are excluded from public life and education.
Afghan women say their lives have changed in ways they never could have imagined. Before the restrictions, many were studying, working, and building careers. Today, many are confined to their homes, unable to work, unable to study, unable to laugh and visit relatives, unable to walk around their neighborhoods and parks and connect with their community, and unable to feel secure about their children’s future.
Despite 5 years of compounding restrictions, many Afghan women and girls continue to resist in quiet ways: teaching children at home, studying online, starting small businesses, and continuing to learn wherever and however they can. They have shared time and time again that these small acts are their way of keeping hope alive and tightening their grasp on their stalled dreams.
The question many Afghan girls are asking remains the same: How many more years must pass before they are allowed to return to school?
For millions of Afghan girls, the loss of education has not only taken away classrooms and careers, but more crucially it has taken away valuable time, opportunity, and the ability to plan a future. The longer this ban continues, the more it threatens not only the lives of Afghan women and girls, but the future of Afghanistan itself.
As one Afghan woman wrote in a testimony from inside the country: “We are not just statistics or headlines. We are human beings, with dreams, talents, and hearts that still beat for the future. Please do not forget the voices of Afghan women.”