Treatment of women by the Taliban

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). From 27 September 1996 to 17 December 2001, when the Taliban were in control of 90 percent of Afghanistan, it imposed the following restrictions on women: • Women should not appear in public without a mahram. • All street-level windows should be painted over or screened to prevent women from being visible from the street. • Photographing, filming and displaying pictures of girls and women in newspapers, books, shops or the home was banned. • The modification of any place names that included the word "women". For example, "women's garden" was renamed "spring garden". • Women were not allowed to wash the laundry at the river banks. If found, the woman was to be brought into the custody of a male guardian who was supposed to severely punish her. Mobility The Taliban rulings regarding public conduct placed severe restrictions on a woman's freedom of movement and created difficulties for those who could not afford a burqa (which was not commonly worn in Afghanistan prior to the rise of the Taliban and considered a fairly expensive garment at upwards of It is estimated that 25 percent of government employees were female, and when compounded by losses in other sectors, many thousands of women were affected. 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. The two parties later came to an agreement over the working conditions, but the Taliban demanded the agreement to be kept secret. A Taliban representative stated: "The Taliban's act of giving monthly salaries to 30,000 job-free women, now sitting comfortably at home, is a whiplash in the face of those who are defaming Taliban with reference to the rights of women. These people through baseless propaganda are trying to incite the women of Kabul against the Taliban". The Taliban promoted the use of the extended family, or zakat system of charity to ensure women should not need to work. However, years of conflict meant that nuclear families often struggled to support themselves let alone aid additional relatives. The other exception to the employment ban allowed a reduced number of humanitarian workers to remain in service. The Taliban segregation codes meant that women were invaluable for gaining access to vulnerable women or conducting outreach research. This exception was not sanctioned by the entire Taliban movement, so instances of female participation, or lack thereof, varied with each circumstance. On 19 May 2022, the Taliban rulers ordered all female TV presenters to cover their faces on air. The directive came from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice, which replaced the country's Ministry of Women's Affairs after the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. In December 2022, the Taliban banned women from working in non-government organisations (NGOs), and ordered all such organisations to cease employment of female employees. This resulted in some NGOs being unable to continue their work in Afghanistan. Education First rule The Taliban claimed to recognise their Islamic duty to offer education to both boys and girls, yet a decree was passed that banned girls above the age of 8 from receiving education. 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. Pakistani Islamic scholars, including Taqi Usmani, urged the Taliban to re-open secondary schools for women. On 20 December 2022, the Ministry of Higher Education informed the country's public and private universities that women were suspended from university education. The ministry stated that female attendance would remain suspended "until a suitable environment" had been established at universities and promised that it would provide such a setting soon. However, BBC News pointed out that they had previously reneged on similar promises to reopen secondary education. Some Taliban leaders told BBC News that they disagreed with restrictions on female education. In contrast, in early September, the Taliban said that women would not be allowed to "work in high-ranking posts" in the government 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. In June 1998, the Taliban banned women from attending general hospitals in the capital, whereas before they had been able to attend a women-only ward of general hospitals. This left only one hospital in Kabul at which they could seek treatment. In February 2023, the Taliban ordered pharmacies in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif to stop selling contraceptive medicines and devices. This was a reversal of an earlier February 2024 decision to permit basic medical training for women. According to NPR, the health ministry had lobbied for an exemption from the general ban on women's education in the healthcare sector because "in some provinces, the Taliban does not allow women to seek treatment from male medical professionals." Forced confinement Family harmony was badly affected by mental stress, isolation and depression that often accompanied the forced confinement of women. A 1998 survey of 160 women residents or former residents of Kabul found that 97 per cent showed signs of serious depression and 71 per cent reported a decline in their physical well-being. Nail varnish and cosmetics were prohibited. Taliban restrictions on the cultural presence of women covered several areas. Place names including the word "women" were modified so that the word was not used. Women were forbidden to laugh loudly as it was considered improper for a stranger to hear a woman's voice. Women were prohibited from participating in sports or entering a sports club. Slavery of women In 2017, Taliban members were accused of sanctioning forced marriages, marital rape, and slavery of women. ==Punishments==

beating an Afghan woman in Kabul on 26 August 2001. The footage was filmed by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan. Punishments were often carried out publicly, either as formal spectacles held in sports stadiums or town squares or spontaneous street beatings. Civilians lived in fear of harsh penalties as there was little mercy; anyone caught breaking decrees were often treated with extreme violence. A Taliban official reminded the women to cover their body completely, and to observe Hejab (seclusion of society) as mandated by the Sharia. • In 1999, a mother of five children was executed in front of 30,000 spectators in Kabul's Ghazi Sport stadium for murdering her husband (see right). She was imprisoned for three years and extensively tortured prior to the execution, yet she refused to plead her innocence in a bid to protect her daughter (reportedly the actual culprit). • When a Taliban raid discovered a woman running an informal school in her apartment, they beat the children and threw the woman down a flight of stairs (breaking her leg) and then imprisoned her. They threatened to stone her family publicly if she refused to sign a declaration of loyalty to the Taliban and their laws. Her ears and nose were cut off and she was left for dead in the mountains, but survived. • In 2013, Indian author Sushmita Banerjee was shot dead by Taliban militants for allegedly defying Taliban dictates. She was married to an Afghan businessman and had recently relocated to Afghanistan. Earlier, she had escaped two instances of execution by Taliban in 1995 and later fled to India. Her book based on her escape from Taliban was also filmed in an Indian movie. • On 12 July 2021, a woman in Faryab Province was beaten to death by Taliban militants and her house was set alight because she would not cook for a group of their fighters. • In August 2021, Afghan police reported that Taliban extremists had killed an Afghan woman in Balkh Province for wearing tight clothing and not being accompanied by a male relative. The Taliban denied the accusation and said they were investigating the incident. Many punishments were carried out by individual militias without the sanction of Taliban authorities, as it was against official Taliban policy to punish women in the street. A more official line was the punishment of men for instances of female misconduct: a reflection of a patriarchal society and the belief that men are duty bound to control women. Maulvi Kalamadin stated in 1997, "Since we cannot directly punish women, we try to use taxi drivers and shopkeepers as a means to pressure them" to conform. Examples of punishment of men include: • If a taxi driver picked up a woman with her face uncovered or unaccompanied by a mahram, then he faced a jail sentence, and the husband would be punished. • If a woman was caught washing clothes in a river then she would be escorted home by Islamic authorities where her husband/mahram would be severely punished. • If a tailor was found taking female measurements, the tailor would face imprisonment. 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." ==International response (pre-2021)==

, Pakistan. The protests of international agencies carried little weight with Taliban authorities, who gave precedence to their interpretation of Islamic law and did not feel bound by UN codes or human rights laws. • In 1998, a detailed report by Physicians for Human Rights concluded in its executive summary: "To PHR's knowledge, no other regime in the world has methodically and violently forced half of its population into virtual house arrest, prohibiting them on pain of physical punishment from showing their faces, seeking medical care without a male escort, or attending school. ... It is difficult to find another government or would-be government in the world that has deliberately created such poverty by arbitrarily depriving half the population under its control of jobs, schooling, mobility, and health care." In January 2006, a London conference on Afghanistan led to the creation of an International Compact, which included benchmarks for the treatment of women. The Compact includes the following point: "Gender:By end-1389 (20 March 2011): the National Action Plan for Women in Afghanistan will be fully implemented; and, in line with Afghanistan's MDGs, female participation in all Afghan governance institutions, including elected and appointed bodies and the civil service, will be strengthened." 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. 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. 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. The appointment came as women in the country were facing increased oppression by the ruling Taliban. == Post-2021 ==

Women's dress 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. Rights groups, including the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, sharply criticised the decision. The decision is expected to adversely affect the Islamic Emirate's chances of international recognition. 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, though this contradicts the reality. 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. Education and employment 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. Up to 60 female employees reported receiving calls from the HR department requesting them to introduce a male family member to replace them. While Abdul Baqi Haqqani, the Minister for Higher Education until October 2022, was in favor of women being able to attend universities, his successor Neda Mohammad Nadeem opposes university education for women. According to BBC report, by 2025 Taliban government cancelled 18 education courses from Universities out of which six were women studies related, that included 'sexual harassment and human rights', midwifery courses, Gender and Development, The Role of Women in Communication, and Women's Sociology. Taliban also banned around 140 books authored by women out of total 680 books of "concern" being not in line with "Sharia and Taliban policies", that included even a title "Safety in the Chemical Laboratory". Recreation and sports In November 2022, women were banned from gyms, public baths, public parks, and amusement parks. Relationships and reproductive rights In February 2023, The Guardian reported that the Taliban began to restrict access to contraceptives. They ordered pharmacies to clear their stocks of birth control medicine and threatened midwives. In Kabul, Taliban fighters stated that "contraceptive use and family planning is a western agenda". In March 2024, the Taliban's supreme leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced that the group was reinstating flogging and death by stoning for women as punishment for adultery, saying, "the Taliban's work did not end with the takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun." In August 2024, the Taliban issued laws banning the transportation of women traveling alone, and women and men who are not related to each other mixing. 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. The laws issued then also stated women should veil themselves in front of all male strangers and all non-Muslims, and that women should not be heard reciting, singing, or reading out loud in public, as well as that women are forbidden to look at men they are not related to by blood or marriage and vice versa. A new penal code was passed in 2026 that permits husbands to inflict physical punishment on their wives and children, provided it does not result in broken bones or open wounds. This code also made it a crime for a woman to visit a relative without her husband's consent, or to fail to return when he demands it. International response In January 2025, The International Criminal Court (ICC) issued two warrants against the Taliban supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada and the Chief judge, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, for committing crimes against humanity with their campaign of 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. ICC member states are obliged to arrest the wanted if they are on their territory. On 8 July 2025, the ICC upheld the arrest warrants against Akhundzada and Haqqani, with Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid rejecting them, saying that the Taliban does not recognize the ICC as an entity. ==See also==