This report documents how violence, threats and intimidation carried out by parties to the conflict in Afghanisatn directly harmed or impacted health and education personnel, reduced the availability of healthcare,and limited children’s access to essential health and education services. Schools and hospitals were damaged or destroyed by targeted attacks and crossfire, with many remaining closed due to insecurity, threats or military use.

The findings of this report are based on data collected from 1 January 2013 to 31 December 2015 by the Human Rights Unit of UNAMA and UNICEF. The report focuses on attacks and incidents directly linked to the conflict – excluding criminal attacks affecting schools and hospitals and attacks carried out by private actors.

Data from a case study commissioned by UNICEF on crossfire is also included. All data is analysed through the framework of applicable international humanitarian law, international human rights law, international criminal law and national legislation, as well as United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1612, 1882, 1998, and 2143. 

Sixteen years after the US-led military intervention in Afghanistan ousted the Taliban, an estimated two-thirds of Afghan girls do not attend school. The aim of getting all girls into school was never fully realised, and the proportion of students who are girls is even falling in some parts of the country. The vast majority of the millions of Afghan children not in school are girls, and only 37 percent of adolescent girls are literate, compared to 66 percent of adolescent boys.

'I won’t be a doctor, and one day you’ll be sick: Girls’ access to education in Afghanistan' is based on 249 interviews in Kabul, Kandahar, Balkh, and Nangarhar provinces, most with girls who were kept from completing their education.

The report describes how, as security in the country worsens and international donors disengage, progress made toward getting girls into school is at risk. Afghanistan’s government provides fewer schools for girls than boys. Many children live far from a school so are not able to attend, which particularly affects girls. About 41 percent of schools have no buildings, and many lack boundary walls, water and toilets—disproportionately affecting girls. Girls are kept home due to gender norms that do notvalue or permit their education, or due to security concerns. A third of girls marry before age 18, and forces many girls out of school.

The report calls on the Afghan government, and its international donors, to increase girls’ access to education through protecting schools and students, institutionalising and expanding models that help girls study, and taking concrete steps to meet the government’s obligation to provide universal free and compulsory primary education.