Four years after the Taliban’s return to power on 15 August 2021, Afghanistan has become a prison without windows for millions of women and girls. The hard-won achievements in education, employment, and political participation that had taken root over the past two decades collapsed overnight under the weight of Hibatullah’s decrees and the Taliban’s rigid rule.
Young women in Kabul say their daily lives have turned into an unending nightmare. Each new decree strips away another piece of their hope, identity, and future. They believe the Taliban have engineered a system built on exclusion, turning Afghanistan into a vast detention camp for anyone who does not conform to their ideology.
From the earliest days of their return, the Taliban issued a stream of verbal and written orders targeting fundamental rights, especially those of women. On 15 August 2021, the closure of girls’ secondary schools marked the first major blow, depriving millions of education and shutting off their path to the future. Zarmina, one of those affected, says this ban took away not just her lessons, but also her confidence and dreams.
In the months and years that followed, the list of restrictions grew: the dismissal of women from government jobs, the dissolution of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, the closure of women’s parks and public baths, the shutting down of safe houses, bans on traveling without a male guardian, and the prohibition of overseas scholarships for women without such guardians. Sitara, a former prosecutor, recounts how the forced removals devastated her colleagues economically, psychologically, and in terms of personal safety—making even the simplest jobs out of reach.
Further measures included restricting women’s choice of university subjects, banning graduation ceremonies, closing university doors to female students, prohibiting women from driving, mandating the niqab, restricting women’s media appearances to full-body coverage, banning women from filing for divorce, and expelling women from domestic and international NGOs. Hasna and Sakina, two students just short of graduating, saw their professional and educational ambitions collapse overnight.
By 2023 and 2024, restrictions extended into private and health sectors: the closure of beauty salons, the banning of women from health institutes, and orders to alter or block windows in residential buildings that overlooked spaces where women might work or spend time. Salary cuts for female employees, the enactment of a strict “virtue and vice” law, and even labeling women’s voices and faces as “awrah” further deepened the marginalization.
Women’s rights activists warn that these policies have destroyed not only women’s access to education and employment but also their sense of self-worth and social identity. Sahar Tajik of the Foundation for Women’s Freedom of Thought says the outcome has been widespread poverty, hopelessness, and isolation among Afghan women.
Reports from the United Nations, international human rights organizations, and media outlets confirm that the Taliban’s actions amount to systematic, deliberate violations of women’s rights—rising to the level of crimes against humanity and gender apartheid. On 8 July 2025, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and Chief Justice Abdul Hakim Haqqani on charges of committing such crimes.
