From Kabul to Tehran: A Joint War Against the Education of Afghan Girls

The Policy of Elimination: From Kabul to Tehran

The Education Department of Tehran’s counties recently issued an official notice declaring that Afghan refugee students who hold census slips or return-to-Afghanistan papers are no longer allowed to enroll in schools in Iran for the 1404 academic year. This announcement clearly indicates that the Iranian government has decided to effectively remove thousands of Afghan refugee children from its formal education system.

The text of this directive states that school principals should not only refuse to enroll these students but also must not refer their families to the Department of Education for further assistance. Such a decision gives this discrimination a completely formal and legal face and, in effect, closes the doors of education to Afghan children. Many of these children left Afghanistan with nothing but hope for an education.

Girls: The Perpetual Victims

According to official statistics, more than two million Afghan refugees in Iran possess census slips. Among them, around 610,000 students have been enrolled in Iranian schools. It is now unclear how many of these students will be deprived of their right to education due to this new decision. What is clear, however, is the rapid collapse of educational rights for Afghans in a country that claims to uphold Islamic justice.

Afghan girls are once again the first victims. In Afghanistan, the Taliban closed the doors of schools to them. Now in Iran, they are losing even the chance to register. Families who endured hardship and risked everything through migration for the future of their children are now faced with locked doors, closed and sealed by official order.

The Taliban and the Islamic Republic: Two Paths, One Destination

The Taliban, with a rigid and extremist interpretation of religion, declared school forbidden for girls. The Islamic Republic of Iran, using administrative and legal procedures, achieves the same result without the need for an official announcement banning girls' education. Both ultimately arrive at the same conclusion: preventing the intellectual growth and empowerment of the young Afghan generation, especially girls.

This unspoken yet obvious alignment is a serious warning for the international community and human rights organizations. If the Taliban, in the name of religion, and Iran, in the name of law, are depriving children of education, then what difference remains between the two?

Education: The Last Remaining Stronghold

In a world where Afghan refugees face waves of inequality, discrimination, and violence, education remains the last stronghold of hope. A child who holds a pen might be able to break the chains of discrimination. But when that very pen is taken away, the future becomes dark not only for the child but for an entire society.

Preventing children from accessing education, especially based on ethnicity or documentation status, is a blatant violation of human rights, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, and even the fundamental principles of Islam. Yet in the face of this clear violation, not only do international organizations remain silent, but their indifferent silence has itself become a form of complicity.

An End to Injustice?

Afghan girls in Kabul were pushed out of school after sixth grade. Afghan girls in Tehran are deprived of the right to register before even entering the classroom. And families who were searching for a way to save their children’s future now find themselves trapped once again, this time by policy, cruelty, and injustice.

When education, the most basic human right, is taken from an Afghan child, what justice is left to talk about?