Six Million Afghans Pushed Back Into Taliban Rule as Girls' School Ban Enters Sixth Year

In the years since Pakistan and Iran intensified crackdowns on undocumented Afghan migrants, roughly six million Afghans have been pushed back across the border into a country many barely know, according to the BBC's reporting from the Torkham crossing. UNHCR says another one million have been forced back so far in 2026 alone, and the pace shows no sign of slowing.

"In a little under three years, we've seen six million people, a population that is itself the size of a small country, come back to Afghanistan," UNHCR Afghanistan spokesperson Charlie Goodlake told the BBC. "We've never seen in recent history a return movement on this scale."

Some of the returnees have never set foot in Afghanistan. Nazia, 35, was born in Pakistan and crossed at Torkham with two of her children after nearly her entire family, eight sisters and their children, was deported this year. "It feels good to be in my own country," she told the BBC, "but I've never been to Afghanistan before and many people here don't even have enough bread to eat."

Sarwar, who left Afghanistan 45 years ago during the Soviet invasion, arrived with seven brothers and their families in a 40-person convoy. "Despite all that pain, I am also happy because I am finally free of harassment by Pakistan's police," he said.

A crackdown that swept in more than illegal migrants

Pakistan and Iran say they're cracking down on undocumented migration, and that's a legitimate government function no country is obligated to waive. Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghans for decades, and its officials have cited security concerns and strain on public services as reasons to tighten enforcement.

But the UN and human rights groups say the sweep has gone well beyond undocumented migrants. Pakistan now publicly states that Afghans holding Proof of Registration cards, meaning they were legally registered, are not exempt from removal either. People who followed the rules are being sent back anyway.

Girls still banned from school, five years on

While the deportations pile pressure on Afghanistan's economy, the Taliban's restrictions on women and girls remain unchanged. UNESCO said this week that roughly 2.4 million Afghan girls are still excluded from secondary education five years after the Taliban takeover.

"Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls and women are formally banned from secondary and higher education," UNESCO program coordinator Hoda Jaberian said, according to the Associated Press. "Five years is not a temporary interruption in a child's education. It is clearly almost an entire secondary school cycle."

Before the Taliban returned, nearly one million Afghan girls were enrolled in secondary education, Jaberian said, calling that progress "completely reversed." UNESCO says it still runs community-based literacy classes through more than 1,000 trained facilitators, operating with the Taliban's knowledge, but the formal ban stands.

Washington's unfinished promises

The deportation crisis isn't only a Pakistan-Iran story. Fox News published an op-ed from World Relief and AfghanEvac noting that most of the roughly 70,000 Afghans evacuated by the U.S. government after the 2021 withdrawal were admitted on humanitarian parole, not permanent status. Parole authorizes work and lawful presence, but it's temporary, leaving many Afghan allies in legal limbo five years later.

That limbo has real consequences. Ground News, tracking coverage across outlets, flagged that the Trump administration deported a relative of Afghans who had helped the U.S. military to the Central African Republic, a case getting heavy coverage from left-leaning outlets but almost none from right-leaning ones. Separately, the Pentagon says a review ordered by Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth into the 2021 Afghanistan withdrawal uncovered "hidden" files, a claim getting more attention on the right than the left.

Both gaps matter. Congress still hasn't passed a permanent Afghan Adjustment Act that would convert parole into lasting legal status for wartime allies, an idea both evangelical groups and veterans' advocates have pushed since 2021 under presidents from both parties. Evangelical leader Franklin Graham helped organize early resettlement support, and World Relief says churches were flooded with volunteers wanting to help. The political will to finish the job has been harder to sustain than the initial goodwill.

What happens next is unresolved on every front. UNHCR hasn't said when, or whether, Pakistan and Iran will slow the pace of returns. UNESCO has no indication the Taliban plans to lift the school ban. And no vote is currently scheduled in Congress on permanent status for the Afghan allies still living on temporary parole inside the United States.