Taliban wipes out decades of progress as 2.4M Afghan girls remain locked out of school, UN agency says

Five years after the Taliban reclaimed reclaimed Afghanistan , 2.4 million girls remain locked out of secondary school, wiping away decades of progress and leaving a generation of young women without access to the classroom.

Afghanistan is now the only country in the world that formally prohibits girls and women from receiving an education beyond the primary level, according to UNESCO, which issued a new call Tuesday for the "immediate and unconditional" restoration of their right to education.

The United Nations agency warned that the consequences of the Taliban's policies now reach far beyond the classroom, with women barred from most paid jobs and public-facing professions and facing restrictions on their ability to travel without a male guardian.

MOSCOW, TALIBAN FORGE MILITARY ALLIANCE IN POWER GRAB AFTER US AFGHANISTAN EXIT: REPORTS "Women have been erased from public life, and as a new generation of girls grows without an education, their future becomes increasingly dark," UNESCO said in a statement.

The Taliban swept back into power on Aug.

15, 2021, as U.S. and NATO forces withdrew from Afghanistan after two decades of war.

The Taliban soon barred girls from secondary schools and later expanded the restrictions to universities, employment and other areas of public life.

Despite years of pressure from the United Nations, humanitarian groups, human rights advocates and several Islamic countries , the Taliban has refused to lift the education restrictions and has maintained that the issue is a domestic matter, according to The Associated Press.

IRAN AGREES NOT TO EXECUTE EIGHT WOMEN TIED TO ANTI-REGIME PROTESTS AFTER TRUMP'S PUBLIC APPEAL The impact has been a dramatic reversal of the educational gains made by Afghan girls during the previous two decades.

While girls had severely limited access to schooling in 2001, nearly 1 million were enrolled in secondary education by 2021, according to UNESCO.

Five years later, an estimated 2.4 million girls are excluded from secondary education.

"Five years is not a temporary interruption in a child's education," Hoda Jaberian, UNESCO's program coordinator for education in emergencies, said during a video news conference Tuesday, according to The AP.

"It is clearly almost an entire secondary school cycle." UNESCO warned that denying education to girls while restricting women's ability to work could deepen Afghanistan's already severe economic problems.

Nearly half of Afghanistan's population lives below the poverty line, according to UNESCO, which said preventing women from studying and working further limits their ability to support their families and contribute to the country's economy.