Impact on the most marginalized women and girls

COVID-19 most harms children and families with weaker resilience to crisis and shocks. The disruption to education is likely to have the biggest impact on the most marginalized and at-risk children, as the crisis exacerbates pre-existing education disparities and reduces their opportunities to continue their education.

Among those most affected are likely to be women and girls from families living in poverty, those living in remote, rural and/or conflict-affected areas, internally displaced and returnee women and girls, and women and girls with disabilities. 

Many of these women and girls have limited opportunities to continue learning at home, so the closure of schools is likely to particularly affect their longer-term healthy development. Prior to COVID,19

65% of displaced girls living in hard to reach areas were not enrolled in schools. 36% of households in the hard to reach districted assessed reported loss or diminished access to education. Of the displaced children living in hard to reach areas attending school, only 6% have followed their school curriculum remotely since school closure.

Girls with disabilities, who already had limited access to education before the outbreak,have often been neglected and at times excluded from distance learning, and risk also being forgotten in re-opening and mitigation plans.

Families already living in poverty, many of whom are IDPs or returnees, have little ability to weather a new crisis. They will be most under pressure to relieve financial crises through child labor or child marriage. 

Girls and women lacking adequate access to nutrition and healthcare will face the greatest harm due to losing access to essential support services offered at schools, such as nutrition and psychosocial programmes. 

The pandemic will continue to feed vicious circles of poverty, further increasing inequalities, eroding social and economic resilience and hampering development and peace at the local and national level.

With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of thousands of Afghan families returned to Afghanistan from neighboring countries, creating even greater pressure on the struggling school system. These families are likely to face particularly challenging barriers to education, especially if they are returning to rural and remote parts of the country affected by ongoing armed conflict and lack of access to basic services.