- What’s happening in Afghanistan today?
- Women’s rights in Afghanistan
- Voices from Afghanistan
- How can you help?
What’s Happening in Afghanistan Today?
The Taliban continue to persist in their crackdown on human rights, particularly against the rights of women and girls. The United Nations (UN) and many other human rights organisations have condemned the intensified repression, which includes gender persecution, arbitrary detentions, and public punishments.
Latest Updates:
14th November 2025
Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, we have seen increased human rights violations in Afghanistan. Currently, there are concerns in a number of areas:
- The violation of the rights of women and girls (see section below)
- Economic and humanitarian crises – in November 2024, it was reported that over half of Afghanistan’s population needed urgent humanitarian aid and assistance (HRW, 2025)
- Continued persecution and mistreatment of the LGBTQ+ community
- Curtailed freedom of expression and media
- Extrajudicial executions, torture and other ill-treatment – for example, Taliban authorities carried out corporal punishments, including public floggings of at least 147 men, 28 women, and four boys in the first half of 2024
- Multiple attacks on civilians
- Those able to flee Afghanistan face mass deportation and increased hostility from the Pakistani government. Over 660,000 Afghan refugees have been expelled since the beginning of 2025, including many who have lived their for decades.
Women’s Rights in Afghanistan
The Taliban are gradually stripping women of their fundamental human rights. Though initial promises were made to uphold women’s and minority rights, they have instead imposed strict and medieval restrictions. See below a timeline of actions against Afghan women:
September 2021
- Universities are segregated. Women are allowed to continue attending university, but classrooms are segregated by gender and head coverings are made mandatory (US News, 2023).
March 2022
- Just hours after schools reopened following the pandemic, the Taliban government cancels classes for teenage girls (those over the age of 12). Hundreds of thousands of girls are barred from attending classes (Al Jazeera, 2022).
May 2022
- The government mandates that women must cover from head to toe when they leave their homes (OHCHR, 2023). This includes a mesh covering over their faces. If these restrictions are violated, their male guardians face punishment, and even imprisonment (US News, 2023).
November 2022
- Women are barred from parks and gyms, as well as other public spaces including funfairs (The Guardian, 2022). The ban marks yet another attempt to squeeze women out of Afghan society, and confine them to their homes.
December 2022
- Women are banned from attending universities and working for NGOs. The UN and several countries condemn the order, with the UN’s Special Rapporteur to Afghanistan denouncing the ruling as a ‘new low further violating the right to equal education and deepening the erasure of women from Afghan society’ (BBC, 2022).
- The ban of women working in NGOs casts fear for international aid groups, who are concerned that it will inhibit their ability to provide much needed humanitarian aid (US News, 2023)
April 2023
- Ban on Afghan women working in the U.N. This law results in over 3,000 of UN national staff members, including approximately 400 Afghan women, to refrain from reporting to offices over concerns for their safety (The Diplomat, 2023).
- See HRPF’s Instagram post on the university ban.
May 2023
- Women doctors are banned from registering for the completion exam for specialisation programmes. (EPRS, 2024)
August 2024
- The Taliban published new ‘vice and virtue’ law containing 35 articles., This includes a ban on women’s voices being heard in public (EPRS, 2024).
September 2025
- The Taliban implemented a nationwide internet shutdown for 48-hours, raising concern from the global community about the further isolation of women and girls.
November 2025
- Taliban authorities have ordered women to wear burkas to access hospitals, according to medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF, 2025).
Voices from Afghanistan
Batool
Batool, a professor and activist in Afghanistan, dedicated her life to helping the most vulnerable members of society. She shares her story here.
I continue to raise my voice against the injustices that Afghan women and girls face. Through online support, I have helped over a hundred Afghan girls to persist, to find hope, and to believe in life once again.
Batool
Lina’s story
We will continue to fight for our basic human rights from those who are totally alien to these words…As long as we are alive we will continue.
Maybe the Taliban have forgotten that these women are not women from 20 years ago, they are not silent in the face of injustice.
Lina
