THE Taliban government has deliberately deprived 1.4 million Afghan girls of schooling, a United Nations agency said today.

Afghanistan is the only country in the world that bans female secondary and higher education.

The fundamentalist group, which took power in 2021, barred education for girls above Year 6 because members said it did not comply with their interpretation of Islamic law.

Unesco said at least 1.4 million girls have been deliberately denied access to secondary education since the takeover, a rise of 300,000 since its previous count in April 2023, with more girls reaching the age limit of 12 every year.

“If we add the girls who were already out of school before the bans were introduced, there are now almost 2.5 million girls in the country deprived of their right to education, representing 80 per cent of Afghan school-age girls,” it said.

Access to primary education has also fallen since the Taliban took power, with 1.1 million fewer girls and boys attending school, according to Unesco data.

The agency warned that authorities have almost wiped out two decades of steady progress for education in Afghanistan.

“The future of an entire generation is now in jeopardy,” it said.

Afghanistan had 5.7 million girls and boys in primary school in 2022 compared with 6.8 million in 2019.

“Unesco is alarmed by the harmful consequences of this increasingly massive drop-out rate, which could lead to a rise in child labour and early marriage,” it said.

On Wednesday, Taliban leaders celebrated three years of rule with a ceremony, but did not address the struggling population.

Decades of conflict and instability have left millions of Afghans on the brink of hunger and starvation, and unemployment is high.