Treatment of women by the Taliban

[7]: 12, 31–32 [8] After taking over Afghanistan for the second time in 2021, the Taliban initially granted women permission to attend universities, albeit in gender segregated classrooms, under the condition that they followed "Islamic standards.

[21] From the age of eight onward, girls in Afghanistan were not allowed to be in direct contact with males other than a close "blood relative", husband, or in-law (see mahram).

[2] In December 1998, a decree issued by the Ministry for the promotion of Virtue and prevention of Vice banned taxi drivers from transporting women who did not completely cover their faces.

"[29] A field worker for the NGO Terre des hommes witnessed the impact on female mobility at Kabul's largest state-run orphanage, Taskia Maskan.

[2][31]: 106 Between April and June 1998, the United Nations left their offices in Qandahar following disagreements over a regulation which demanded the female staff to only operate accompanied by a mahram.

[32] Taliban Supreme Leader Mohammed Omar assured female civil servants and teachers they would still receive wages of around US$5 per month, although this was a short-term offering.

The possibility that a woman may not possess any living male relatives was dismissed by Mullah Ghaus, the acting foreign minister, who said he was surprised at the degree of international attention and concern for such a small percentage of the Afghan population.

[22] A Physicians for Human Rights researcher that travelled to Kabul in 1998 described "a city of beggars" filled with "women who had once been teachers and nurses now moving in the streets like ghosts under their enveloping burqas, selling every possession and begging so as to feed their children.

[4] The ordeal of physically getting to work due to the segregated bus system and widespread harassment meant some women left their jobs by choice.

Maulvi Kalamadin insisted it was only a temporary suspension and that women would return to school and work once facilities and street security were adapted to prevent cross-gender contact.

The Taliban wished to have total control of Afghanistan before calling upon an Ulema body to determine the content of a new curriculum to replace the Islamic yet unacceptable Mujahadin version.

[10][11][12] In March 2022, the Taliban abruptly reversed their plans to allow girls to resume their secondary school education (defined as grade seven and upwards in Afghanistan).

With the exception of the current cohort of university students, this decision leaves graduating from sixth grade as the highest level of educational attainment possible for Afghan women.

[13][14] On 17 August 2021, shortly after the Fall of Kabul, a senior member of the Taliban cultural commission, Enamullah Samangani, called on women to join the government.

[29] With fewer female health professionals in employment, the distances many women had to travel for attention increased while the provision of ante-natal clinics declined.

[2] In Kabul, some women established informal clinics in their homes to service family and neighbours, yet as medical supplies were hard to obtain, their effectiveness was limited.

These baths were an important facility in a nation where few possessed running water and the bar gave cause for the UN to predict a rise in scabies and vaginal infections among women denied methods of hygiene as well as access to health care.

"[51] The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) stated that the ban "is profoundly discriminatory, short-sighted and puts the lives of women and girls at risk in multiple ways.

[68] In one incident, "The Guardian has seen video evidence of a female Afghan human rights activist being gang-raped and tortured in a Taliban jail by armed men.

[1] After the Taliban takeover of Herat in 1995, the UN had hoped the gender policies would become more 'moderate' "as it matured from a popular uprising into a responsible government with linkages to the donor community".

"[72] However, an Amnesty International report on 11 June 2008, declared that there needed to be "no more empty promises" with regard to Afghanistan, citing the treatment of women as one such unfulfilled goal.

[73] In September 2021, Pakistan's Prime Minister Imran Khan said that a ban on women's education in Afghanistan would be un-Islamic, and he called for the leadership to be inclusive and respect human rights.

[74] On 29 December 2021, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced the appointment of Rina Amiri as special envoy for Afghan women, girls, and human rights.

[75] In May 2022, the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice published a decree requiring all women in Afghanistan to wear full-body coverings when in public (either a burqa or an abaya paired with a niqāb, which leaves only the eyes uncovered).

The decree said enforcement action including fines, prison time, or termination from government employment would be taken against male "guardians" who fail to ensure their female relatives abide by the law.

[76][77] In an interview with Christiane Amanpour, First Deputy Leader Sirajuddin Haqqani claimed the decree is only advisory and no form of hijab is compulsory in Afghanistan,[78] though this contradicts the reality.

[79] It has been speculated that there is a genuine internal policy division over women's rights between hardliners, including Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, and pragmatists, though they publicly present a united front.

[80] In July 2022, the Taliban advised female employees in the country's finance ministry to suggest a male relative to replace them so that the women could be dismissed from their positions.

Also at the same time they issued laws stating women must always veil their bodies in public and that a face covering is necessary and clothing should never be short, thin, or tight.

[86] In January 2025, International Criminal Court issued two warrants against the Taliban supreme leader Haibatullah Akhundzada and the Chief judge, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for committing the crimes against humanity with the oppression and persecution of Afghan women and girls by depriving their freedom of movement, the rights to control their bodies, to education, and to a private and family life, whereas the alleged resistance and opposition are brutally suppressed with murder, imprisonment, torture, rape, and other forms of sexual violence, since 2021.