Zahra had only a few months left to complete her medical studies in Kabul when Taliban authorities banned women from attending university in Afghanistan. Her family moved to Iran so she and her sister could continue their education. Four years later, neither is enrolled in education.
According to Zahra, the family’s visas soon expired, and without legal residency permits, they were denied access to education. For security reasons, her real name and those of the other Afghan women in this article are not being disclosed.
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Speaking by telephone from Tehran, she told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that none of their applications to study in Iran had been successful. Zahra added that many other Afghan girls there face the same situation.
Hundreds of girls who left for neighboring Iran and Pakistan to continue their studies after being barred from secondary schools and universities in Afghanistan are facing growing obstacles in those countries too. Tehran and Islamabad have tightened residency rules and are deporting large numbers of Afghans.
In March 2022, the Taliban suspended education for girls beyond sixth grade. In December that year, women were banned from university studies, and in December 2024, they were also excluded from medical training courses.
The United Nations said in August that around 2.4 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied secondary education since the ultraconservative group returned to power in August 2021. According to the UN, Afghanistan is the only country where secondary and higher education are officially banned for girls and women.
In a file photograph, Afghan girls demand access to education.
Roya, another Afghan woman living in Tehran, left her homeland around four years ago so she would not have to give up her education. She told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that she wanted to study, earn a master’s degree and make something of her life; that was why she had decided to leave.
Although she held a bachelor’s degree, Roya’s applications for a master’s program at several Iranian universities were rejected because she did not have a legal residency permit.
Both Roya and Zahra say they face the risk of deportation every day. In 2025, around 1.9 million Afghans returned from Iran, including 1.26 million who were deported. Deportations continued to rise in 2026: according to figures cited by the United Nations, nearly 492,300 people had been deported by October 12.
In March 2025, registration slips that had granted temporary legal status to around two million Afghans in Iran expired. Beginning on March 21, 2025, Iranian authorities restricted access to services, including education, for foreigners without valid residency documents.
Iranian officials insist that access to education has not been cut off entirely. Nader Yarahmadi, head of the Interior Ministry’s Center for Foreign Nationals and Immigrants, told Iran’s Tasnim news agency on September 27 that Afghan children can attend school even without documents, provided their parents have valid residency permits. He said the paperwork could be completed during the school year.
The English-language Iranian newspaper Tehran Times has also reported that Afghan children can study alongside Iranian pupils without paying additional tuition fees. However, Iran’s Education Ministry requires foreign nationals to hold valid residency documents, enroll in schools in the area where they are registered as residents and obtain letters of recommendation from the agencies responsible for migrants.
Many Afghans who have arrived in Iran in recent years say their visas have expired and obtaining a legal residency permit has become almost impossible.
Similar obstacles exist in Pakistan. Nilofar was in her final year of secondary school in Afghanistan when Taliban restrictions interrupted her education. She traveled to Pakistan with relatives to continue her schooling but was unable to enroll because she could not obtain a residency permit. She now attends an English-language course that does not require identification.
Nilofar lives in Hazara Town, a neighborhood in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province. She says she went to Pakistan to receive a proper education, but can now only take occasional courses.
The difficulties have also affected Afghans who had begun higher education in Pakistan. Hundreds of Afghan medical students, including many women, are struggling to continue their studies after the Pakistan Medical and Dental Council ordered them to return to their homeland and instructed colleges not to enroll them for this academic year.
Interim rulings by Pakistani courts protect the students from immediate deportation but have not resolved the uncertainty over their future. According to Pakistani officials, Afghans can attend schools and universities if they have valid visas, residency documents and local identity cards.
Human rights advocates say this policy does not address the needs of people without formal visas, whether because of administrative delays or the revocation of their refugee status.
Several Afghan migrants told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty that they live in fear of arrest during Pakistani police raids. They said this fear has been constant since Islamabad launched a new crackdown on undocumented Afghans in 2023.
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) reported that more than 2.39 million Afghans returned from Pakistan between September 2023 and May 16, 2026.
Nilofar says that if she had been able to continue her education over the past four or five years, she would now be in her fourth semester at university. The English course, she adds, is no substitute for school.
