Five years after Taliban takeover, Afghan women stripped of rights under 100+ decrees

Promises broken

On 15 August 2021, Taliban fighters entered Kabul, completing a rapid takeover of Afghanistan less than a year after the Doha agreement with the Trump administration that ratified the withdrawal of US troops. Two days later, regime spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid promised that women would enjoy equal rights under Islamic law.

Our sisters, our men have the same rights; they will be able to benefit from the same rights.

He added that the international community should be assured there would be no discrimination against women, within the framework of Sharia. Five years on, human rights organisations describe a systematic dismantling of those promises. The UN has designated the situation as "the most serious women's rights crisis in the world," with at least 100 decrees adopted since 2021 that institutionalise discrimination against women.

Erased from public space

The restrictions have been imposed progressively, according to Adam Baczko, a CNRS researcher and Afghanistan specialist, who describes the campaign as "progressive and regular." Girls have been banned from pursuing education beyond the sixth grade, and women are prohibited from working in UN agencies, NGOs, or state institutions. Women cannot move freely, express themselves openly, or leave home without a male escort.

An Afghan doctor in Jalalabad, speaking anonymously to RFI, observed that when the Taliban took power, if they issued ten laws, nine concerned women. Amnesty International wrote in a 2023 report that women had been "erased from public space and reduced to silence."

Living in fear

Mariam, a young Afghan woman whose name has been changed for her safety, continues to study online in secret and teaches English to other girls. She described the day the Taliban returned as the most frightening of her life.

Today, I almost never go out, except in case of emergency or for shopping. I am afraid when I see one of them in the street, or even one of their cars. I wonder: what if I was arrested?

She described the daily constraints imposed on women: full body and face covering, no makeup, no nail polish, and the requirement of a male escort to leave home. The girls she teaches initially hoped the Taliban would reopen schools, but that hope faded.

We, the girls, hoped that one day they would reopen the doors of education. Then we completely lost hope, because we understood that they would not change.

A case of femicide

The Taliban's legal framework has also affected women's protection from domestic violence. In February 2026, Liza Shams, a 33-year-old woman in Kabul, died after being beaten by her husband, Hasib. In voice messages recorded before her death, she described how he had beaten her while she was pregnant, isolated her for days, and struck her until she could no longer eat or speak.

I am certainly a woman, and I should not speak about what happens in my home. But I am at the end of my strength.

Her father, Shamsuddin Shams, received a video call from his daughter showing her with a broken jaw. Her sisters took her to Rahmat hospital in Kabul, where she died a little over an hour after arriving. No autopsy was performed.

Breaking international isolation

While the Taliban have tightened restrictions domestically, they have begun reappearing in certain diplomatic spaces. On 23 June 2026, a delegation of Taliban representatives was received in a diplomatic setting. The Taliban used to say that while their enemies had "the watches," meaning technology, they possessed a superior weapon: "time." The fifth anniversary of their return to power falls on 15 August 2026.