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Kabul [Afghanistan]16 August (ANI): Keeping girls out of secondary school costs Afghanistan 2.5% of its annual GDP, according to a new analysis by UNICEF.
If the current 3 million girls can complete secondary education and participate in the job market, girls and women will contribute at least $5.4 billion to Afghanistan’s economy as the Taliban completes a one-year takeover of Afghanistan, the UN agency said.
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UNICEF estimates do not take into account the non-financial impacts of denying girls access to education, such as the impending shortage of female teachers, doctors and nurses, the consequent impact on the decline in girls’ school enrolment and the medical costs associated with teenage pregnancy Increase.
The estimates also do not take into account the broader benefits of education, including overall educational attainment, reductions in child marriage and reductions in infant mortality.
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“The decision on March 23 to not allow girls to return to secondary school is shocking and deeply disappointing. Not only does it violate girls’ basic right to education, but it exposes them to heightened anxiety and a greater risk of exploitation and abuse , including child trafficking, early and forced marriage,” said Dr Mohammad Ayoya, UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan. “This new analysis now clearly sheds light on the dire economic impact of this decision on the country’s GDP.”
Even before the Taliban took power on 15 August last year, more than 4.2 million out-of-school children were struggling in Afghanistan; 60 percent of them were girls.
While the potential cost of not educating boys and girls is high in terms of lost income, not educating girls is especially costly because of the relationship between education attainment and girls delaying marriage and childbearing, participating in the workforce, and making choices about their futures And invest more in the health and education of your own children later in life.
Analysis shows that without the realization of girls’ rights to receive and complete secondary education, Afghanistan will not be able to recover the gross domestic product (GDP) lost during the transition period and achieve its true potential productivity.
“UNICEF wants to see every girl and boy across Afghanistan in school and learning,” Dr Ayoya said. “We will not stop advocating until this goal is achieved. Education is not only the right of every child, it is the foundation of Afghanistan’s future development.”
In addition to girls being unable to return to secondary school, UNICEF is working to provide adolescent girls with the vital services they need, such as anaemia prevention support and menstrual health and hygiene services that UNICEF has provided in schools in the past.
Child malnutrition is also on the rise. In June 2021, 30,000 children in Afghanistan were treated for severe acute malnutrition; in June 2022, 57,000 children were enrolled, a 90% increase. Children are forced to work to support their families instead of going to school, the safest place they can go.
In the past 12 months, school-based health and nutrition services have provided iron and folic acid supplements to 272,386 adolescent girls. Thus, the inability of adolescent girls to continue their education can harm their health.
“Afghanistan remains one of the most complex and multi-dimensional regions in the global child crisis,” said Dr. Ayoya. “This is a critical time for a generation of children in Afghanistan. Girls’ rights are under attack; their childhoods are undermined by deprivation.” (ANI)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from the Syndicated News feed, the body of the content may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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