The UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday that the ongoing restrictions on girls’ education and women’s employment in Afghanistan could result in a shortage of more than 25,000 women teachers and health workers by 20230, urging authorities to lift the ban on secondary education for girls.

In a new report titled “The Cost of Inaction on Girls’ Education and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Afghanistan,” UNICEF found that over one million girls have been deprived of their right to education since the Taliban imposed the ban. Furthermore, projections estimated that the number of girls excluded from education would double by 2030 if the ban remains in place.

UNICEF highlighted that the bans on education and employment for Afghan women exposed the country to a double crisis: the loss of trained female professionals and the prevention of future generations from replacing them. This deficit is particularly acute in the education and health sectors. According to the report, the education sector has already seen a decrease in the number of female teachers by more than nine percent between 2022 and 2024.

The impact is even greater in the health sector, where there are serious risks to women’s and children’s health, given that the decline in the number of female workers would limit patients’ access to maternal and child health services, as social norms often prevent women from receiving medical services from male providers.

Lastly, the UNICEF stressed that this crisis not only denies Afghan citizens their fundamental rights to education and health care but also weakens the country’s economy by depriving it of skilled professionals. On this matter, UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell said: “Denying Afghan girls access to secondary education robs an entire nation of its potential – locking girls, their families and their communities into poverty, weakening health outcomes and silencing the economic engine that an educated generation of women could ignite.”

Since regaining power in 2021, the Taliban has imposed multiple restrictions on the rights of girls and women, including a ban on education, employment prohibitions, and the implementation of discriminatory laws. Earlier this month, Taliban authorities prohibited Afghan women from entering UN premises, which was decried by a coalition of UN experts. In March 2026, the UN found in a report that these policies resulted in a systemic restriction on Afghan women’s access to health care. In July 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant against a Taliban leader for implementing extensive legal restrictions that targeted women and girls.

In addition to constituting serious violations of Afghan women’s fundamental rights, these restrictive policies and the exclusion of women from public life had devastating consequences on Afghanistan’s broader socio-economic situation by depriving the nation of educated professionals who could contribute to providing vital services, especially during crises such as environmental disasters.