More than 2.6 million girls in Afghanistan have been denied a secondary education since 2021. Shafiqa is one of them. She was 10 when the ban began and now studies alone at home, still hoping to become a doctor. UNICEF continues to support primary and community-based learning while calling for girls’ right to secondary and higher education to be restored. To be forbidden from school is to be cut off from friends, mentors and moments that build identity. Stashed away at home, girls across the country are reporting alarming levels of isolation and psychological distress.