Afghanistan risks losing 25,000 women teachers and health workers

Restrictions on girls’ education and women’s employment in Afghanistan could leave the country with a deficit of more than 25,000 female teachers and health workers by 2030, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) warned on Tuesday, according to a press release. The agency cautioned that the crisis is already depriving children of learning and healthcare while weakening Afghanistan’s economy and essential services. A new UNICEF analysis, The Cost of Inaction on Girls’ Education and Women’s Labour Force Participation in Afghanistan, underpins the warning. It found that female representation in the civil service fell from 21 per cent to 17.7 per cent between 2023 and 2025. The findings signal a deepening loss of trained women professionals across vital sectors.

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 restriction remains in place until 2030, more than two million girls will have been deprived of education beyond primary school. Afghanistan already has one of the lowest female literacy rates in the world. The ban continues to reshape the country’s labor pipeline for teaching, nursing, and medicine. The consequences extend from classrooms to hospitals across the country.

The report describes a dual crisis in which Afghanistan is 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, the analysis found. The education sector is already feeling the impact, with the number of female teachers in basic education falling by more than nine per cent. That figure dropped from nearly 73,000 in 2022 to around 66,000 in 2024. Girls are more likely to attend and remain in school when women teachers are present.

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. Restrictions on girls’ and women’s education and work are also costing Afghanistan $84 million each year in lost economic output.

“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. She urged the de facto authorities to lift the ban on secondary education for girls.

UNICEF continues to support children’s education across Afghanistan, with more than 3.7 million children in public schools receiving emergency support in 2025. A further 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,” Russell said.

UNICEF called on the international community to remain committed to supporting girls’ rights to learn.