As Iran accelerates the mass deportation of migrants, concerns are mounting over the fate of thousands of Afghan girls who now face a return to a country where access to education is restricted under Taliban rule.
Families expelled from Iran in recent weeks say they are returning with no official documents, no financial resources, and, most critically, no options for continuing their daughters’ education.
“We lived in Iran for 18 years,” said one deported father. “My daughter was in 11th grade. She was supposed to finish school next year. We were expelled with nothing—no documents, no certificates, no chance to complete her education.”
The deportations have prompted condemnation from Afghan women’s rights groups, who warn that the forced return of families risks permanently ending educational opportunities for thousands of girls. The Afghan Women’s Freedom Movement, in a statement, denounced the expulsions as not only a human rights failure but also a direct threat to the future of an entire generation.
“Expelling Afghan families is not only an act of inhumanity—it is a stain on the conscience of the international community,” the movement said. “Afghan girls deserve dignity, education, and opportunity—not exclusion and suffering.”
The group called on the United Nations and international human rights bodies to pressure the Taliban to lift education bans and to urge Iran to halt forced deportations of vulnerable families.
The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has also raised alarms, saying returning women and girls are among the most in need of urgent medical and psychological support.
“I’m here at the zero point of the Islam Qala border,” said Kobina Asante Antwi-Amuah, UNFPA’s representative in Afghanistan. “We are witnessing a massive influx of deportees from Iran, including pregnant women in need of immediate care and young people showing signs of psychological trauma as they confront an uncertain future.”
Meanwhile, returnees describe dire conditions in Iran prior to their expulsion, citing discrimination and increasingly harsh treatment by authorities.
“They wouldn’t sell us bread,” said Sultan Wali Rahmani, a deportee. “They cut off our water. People were living in terrible conditions.”
A recent report in The Telegraph also highlighted the specific risks facing girls forced to return to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where their rights are systematically curtailed. The report noted that many are at heightened risk of forced marriage, in addition to being excluded from formal schooling beyond the sixth grade.
Iran, which hosts one of the largest Afghan refugee populations in the world, has forcibly expelled hundreds of thousands in recent weeks, drawing widespread concern from international observers. The surge in returns has placed immense strain on border provinces like Herat, and has intensified fears for the future of women and girls now trapped between two regimes offering few protections.
