Restrictions on girls education and womens employment in Afghanistan could leave the country with a deficit of over 25,000 female teachers and health workers by 2030, the UN Childrens Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday.
The agency said the crisis is already depriving children of learning and healthcare, while also weakening Afghanistans economy and the essential services that depend on trained women professionals.
A newUNICEFanalysis,, found that female representation in the civil service fell from21 per cent to 17.7 per cent between 2023 and 2025.
Girls locked out
More than one million girls have been denied their right to learn since Taliban authorities banned girls from secondary education in September 2021.
If that remains in place until 2030,more than two million girls will have been deprived of educationbeyond primary school in a country that already has one of the lowest female literacy rates in the world.
Afghanistan cannot afford to lose future teachers, nurses, doctors, midwives and social workers, who sustain essential services. This will be the reality if girls continue to be excluded from education, said UNICEF Executive Director Catherine Russell.
We urge the de facto authorities to lift the ban on secondary education for girls and call on the international community to remain committed to supporting girls rights to learn.
Essential services at risk
The report says that Afghanistan faces adual crisis: losing trained female professionals while preventing the next generation from replacing them.
By 2030, the country could lose up to 20,000 women teachers and 5,400 healthcare workers, according to the analysis.
The education sector is already feeling the impact.The number of female teachers in basic education fell by more than nine per cent, from nearly 73,000 in 2022 to around 66,000 in 2024.
The decline threatens childrens learning, particularly for girls, who are more likely to attend and remain in school when women teachers are present.
Healthcare impact
The impact could be especially severe in healthcare, where social norms often prevent women from receiving medical services from men.
UNICEF warned that fewer female health workers would directly reduce access to maternal, newborn and child health services, placing women and children at greater risk.
Restrictions on girls and womens education and work are alsocosting Afghanistan $84 million each year in lost economic output, with losses expected to grow as women and girls remain blocked from classrooms and jobs.
UNICEF continues to support childrens education across the country. In 2025, more than 3.7 million children in public schools received emergency support, while 442,000 children 66 per cent of them girls benefited from community-based learning initiatives.
The agency has also built or rehabilitated 232 schools.
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, Ms. Russell said.
