Globally, 122 million girls are out of school, according to the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).  Of those, 2.5 million are banned from education in Afghanistan.

Somaya Faruqi, former captain of the Afghan Girls Robotics Team – known as the Afghan Dreamers – and now an Education Cannot Wait Global Champion, gained international recognition for her engineering achievements before being forced to flee her homeland when the Taliban took power in 2021.

Ahead of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, she spoke with UN News’s Pia Blondel about the stark reality of studying engineering in the United States while many of her peers back home have been forced into marriage and denied an education.