Emirate of Afghanistan showing a group of
nomadic women somewhere along the
Kabul–Kandahar Highway During the
Durrani Empire (1747–1823) and the early
Barakzai dynasty Afghan women customarily lived subjected in a state of
purdah and
gender segregation imposed by patriarchal customs. While this was the case in all Afghanistan, the customs differed somewhat between regions and ethnic groups.
Nomadic women, for example, did not have to hide their faces and even showed some of their hair. Women did not play any public role in society, but some women, such as
Nazo Tokhi and
Ayesha Durrani, became noted as poets and writers, which were art forms possible for women to perform while living in the seclusion of the
harem. The rulers of Afghanistan customarily had a harem of four official wives as well as a large number of unofficial wives for the sake of tribal marriage diplomacy,) and
surati or
surriyat ("mistress" Some women had influence over the affairs of state from inside the royal harem, notably
Zarghona Anaa,
Mirmon Ayesha and
Babo Jan. and
Soraya Tarzi Some Afghan rulers have attempted to increase women's freedom. For the most part, these attempts were unsuccessful. However, there were a few leaders who were able to make some significant, if temporary, changes. Some limited reforms were made by
Abdur Rahman Khan (r. 1880–1901), who banned some forms of oppression originating from tribal customs rather than Islam, among them the custom of forcing widows to marry their brothers-in-law, and enforced some rights which Islam did approve of but local tribal customs did not, such as the right of widows to inherit.
Kingdom of Afghanistan Amanullah Khan (1919–1929) The first person to have made significant reform was
King Amanullah, who ruled from 1919 to 1929 and made some of the more noteworthy changes in an attempt to unify as well as modernize the country. He promoted freedom for women in the public sphere in order to lessen the control that patriarchal families exerted over women. King Amanullah stressed the importance of female education. Along with encouraging families to send their daughters to school, he promoted the unveiling of women and persuaded them to adopt a more western style of dress. In 1921, he created a law that abolished forced marriage, child marriage, and bride price, and put restrictions on
polygamy, a common practice among households in the Afghanistan region. She founded the first women's magazine (
Irshad-e Naswan, 1922), the first women's organization (
Anjuman-i Himayat-i-Niswan), the first school for girls (Masturat School in 1920), the first theatre for women in Paghman and the first hospital for women (the Masturat Hospital in 1924). Queen Soraya set an example for the abolition of gender segregation by appearing with her husband, famously removing her veil in public, and her example was followed by others. In 1928, Amanullah sent fifteen female graduates of the Masturat middle school, daughters of the royal family and government officials, to study in Turkey. King Amanullah Khan's deposition caused a severe backlash, and his successor reinstated the veil and repelled the reforms in women's rights, reinforcing
purdah, and polygamy for men was reintroduced. However, there were no parliamentary system in Afghanistan in 1919, and according to other sources, women did not receive the right to vote until late in the twentieth century; what is clear is that women's suffrage was not practiced until it was introduced in 1964, after the introduction of a parliamentary system in Afghanistan.
Mohammed Zahir Shah (1933–1973) entering a bus during the 1950s Successors
Mohammed Nadir Shah and
Mohammed Zahir Shah acted more cautiously, but nevertheless worked for the moderate and steady improvement of women's rights. Women were allowed to take classes at the Masturat Women's Hospital in Kabul in 1931, and some girls' schools were reopened; One of his aims was to break free from the ultra-conservative, Islamist tradition of treating women as second-class citizens. During his time, he made significant advances towards modernization. During his tenure as Prime Minister from 1953 to 1963, Daoud Khan implemented several progressive policies and laws to support women's rights in Afghanistan. He actively encouraged women to take part in public offices and introduced female staff members in various institutions such as Aryana Afghan Airline, the Tele-Communication department, and other organizations. Daoud also promoted the voluntary unveiling of women, emphasizing their freedom to choose whether or not to wear veils. In addition to these efforts, Daoud aimed to extend women's emancipation beyond the capital city of Kabul. For instance, during his visit to Kandahar, he urged the wives of civil service personnel and other women to abandon the veil. There were instances of opposition to these modernization initiatives in isolated areas, resulting in violent acts against women who did not wear veils. However, the government remained steadfast in its commitment and punished the perpetrators by imprisoning them. women as receptionists and telephone operators in the state Tele-Communications agency, and air hostesses at the Aryana Airlines in 1958. In August 1959, on the second day of the festival of Jeshyn, Queen
Humaira Begum and
Princess Bilqis appeared in the royal box at the military parade unveiled, alongside the Prime Minister's wife,
Zamina Begum. In the cities, women were able to appear unveiled, serve in public office and hold jobs as scientists, teachers, doctors, and civil servants, and they had a considerable amount of freedom with significant educational opportunities. Afghanistan had its first female cabinet ministers in the 1960s and Jameela Farooq Rooshna became the first female judge in
Afghanistan (1969). Women also started appearing in media and entertainment.
Rukhshana is popularly known as one of the first female Afghan pop singers, becoming well known in the 1960s, and
Safia Tarzi as the first Afghan fashion designer. However, despite the effort of the
Women's Welfare Association (WWA), the majority of women continued to be excluded from these opportunities, as these reforms had little effect outside of the cities and mainly concerned urban elite women.
Republic of Afghanistan (1973–1978) : See also:
Republic of Afghanistan (1973–1978) Under the republic of
Mohammad Daoud Khan in 1974–1978, women's rights and equality were upheld, as Article 27 of the 1976 Constitution of the
Republic of Afghanistan (1973–1978) stated: Mohammad Daoud Khan had initiated the work of the liberation of women long before the foundation of the Republic in 1973, when he was prime minister of the king. The 1940s and 1950s saw women becoming nurses, doctors and teachers and civil servants. The first woman Minister was in the health department, elected to Parliament along with three other women, employed in airlines, private corporations, and this was the era that Universities graduated female doctors from Universities of Afghanistan. In fact, in 1964 with the third Constitution, it was allowed for women to enter elected politics and by giving them the right to vote. Women's issues were once again given some consideration. Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud did not want to repeat the haste and mistakes of his predecessor Amanullah and declared veiling a "voluntary option". By now women were expected once again to abandon the veil, marriage expenses were curtailed, and women were encouraged to contribute to the economy. This continued until 1973 when Daoud Khan seized power in a coup. The coup was bloodless and gender issues in this time took another feature. With the purge of national and progressive elements from state positions Mohammad Daoud, desperately struggled to hide the real nature of his wishes and anti-democratic and anti-national objectives behind some progressive sentences. Through this period, women got more freedom than at any other time; right to education and to work, the possibility of joining political parties officially, and becoming representatives of the people in parliament. Afghanistan transitioned into a Republic in July 1973 following a coup led by former Prime Minister Mohammad Daoud Khan, who ousted King Zahir Shah. Daoud, a liberal nationalist, assumed the role of President and immediately expressed his intention to dismantle unjust patriarchal and feudal relationships between husbands and wives. He emphasized women's right to self-determination and pledged equality between men and women before the law, as well as universal and free primary education for all children, regardless of their gender. RAWA still operates in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
Communist era (1978–1992) The
Democratic Republic of Afghanistan (1978–1987) and the Republic of Afghanistan (1987–1992), which followed the
Saur revolution that toppled the government of
Mohammed Daoud Khan, was a period of unprecedented equality for women in Afghanistan. The Communist ideology officially advocated gender equality and women's rights, and the communist government sought to implement it - though without success - on all classes throughout both urban and rural Afghanistan. In 1978, the government, led by
Nur Muhammad Taraki, gave equal rights to women. This gave them the theoretical ability to choose their husbands and careers. The women's emancipation policy of the government were supported by the
Democratic Women's Organisation of Afghanistan (DOAW) and later by the
Afghan Women's Council (AWC), who sought to implement it. Until 1989, the AWC was led by
Masuma Esmati-Wardak and run by a staff of eight women. The AWC had around 150,000 members and offices in nearly all the provinces. However, social norms and certain religious beliefs limited women's employment in rural Afghanistan, with significant disparities in working conditions between urban and village areas despite improvements in cities. The communist government's ideological enforcement of female emancipation in the rural areas took the form of enforced literacy campaigns for women and compulsory schooling for girls, which was heavily resisted in particularly the Pashtun tribal areas. In rural Afghanistan, gender seclusion and sex segregation was a strong part of local culture. To attend school girls would have to leave home, and school was therefore seen as deeply dishonorable. The policy of compulsory schooling for girls as well as boys was met with a strong backlash from the conservative rural population, and contributed to the resistance against the Soviets and the Communist regime by the
Mujahideen, the Islamic guerillas. The fact that young adolescent boys and girls were able to socialize together and thus break
sex segregation was provocating to the extreme for the social conservatives, who reviled these institutions as enterprises that promoted degeneracy, with one critic describing them: :"Moral corruption and degradation was at its height after the so called Saur Revolution. An important meeting place of the young Parchamis–boys and girls– was the outhouses of the Bagh-e-Bala, Kabul. The Parchamis used to take pride in such corrupt practices and boasted to be belonging to an advanced society." and education for women, and by extension women's rights in general, came to be associated with Communism and atheism. Female emancipation was a part of the regime's policy, but according to
Anthony Hyman it was introduced mainly to benefit the party rather for any humanist principle. With a few exceptions, such as
Anahita Ratebzad, Masuma Esmati-Wardak and
Salcha Faruq Etemadi, most women were active at the low and the middle level of party hierarchy rather than the top. He was the last leader of Afghanistan that supported western campaigns and maintained freedom across the country.
Mujahideen era (1992–1996) In 1992, the government under
Mohammad Najibullah transitioned to the
Islamic State of Afghanistan. War in Afghanistan continued into a new phase when
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar started a bombardment campaign against the Islamic State in Kabul. During the violent four-year civil war, a number of women were kidnapped, and some of them were raped. On 27 August 1993, the Government Office of Research and Decrees of the Supreme Court issued an order to government agencies and state functionaries to dismiss all women in their employ, and further decreed: :"Women need not leave their homes at all, unless absolutely necessary, in which case, they are to cover themselves completely; are not to wear attractive clothing and decorative accessories; do not wear perfume; their jewelry must not make any noise; they are not to walk gracefully or with pride and in the middle of the sidewalk; are not to talk to strangers; are not to speak loudly or laugh in public; and they must always ask their husbands' permission to leave home." Like their leader
Mullah Omar, most Taliban soldiers were poor villagers educated in
Wahhabi schools in neighboring
Pakistan. Pakistani
Pashtuns also joined the group. The
United Nations refused to recognize the Taliban government, with the United States imposing heavy sanctions, leading to extreme economic hardship. The Taliban declared that women were forbidden to go to work and that they were not to leave their homes unless accompanied by a male family member. When they did go out, they were required to wear an all-covering
burqa. Women were denied formal education Several Taliban and
Al-Qaeda commanders engaged in human trafficking, abducting women and selling them into forced prostitution and slavery in Pakistan.
Time Magazine writes: "The Taliban often argued that the brutal restrictions they placed on women were actually a way of revering and protecting the opposite sex. The behavior of the Taliban during the six years they expanded their rule in Afghanistan made a mockery of that claim."
Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (2001–2021) in Kabul in 2013 was appointed the first female general director of
Afghan Film in 2019. In late 2001, the
United States invaded Afghanistan, and a new
government under
Hamid Karzai was formed, which included women like in pre-1990s Afghanistan. Under the new constitution of 2004, 27 percent of the 250 seats in the
House of the People are reserved for women. It took many years for public perception of women to recover following years of Taliban rule. In January 2004,
Afghanistan National Television aired a 1980s song by pop idol Salma, the first time state television aired a female singer in over a decade. This provoked criticism from conservative figures. The Supreme Court raised an objection to the state broadcaster which resisted the pressure, claiming the backing of the government and the Culture Minister who were in support. As of 2004, Article 22 of the Afghan Constitution allows women to be treated equally, but this law is rarely enforced. In March 2012, President Karzai endorsed a "code of conduct" which was issued by the Ulema Council. Some of the rules state that "women should not travel without a male guardian and should not mingle with strange men in places such as schools, markets and offices." Karzai said that the rules were in line with
Islamic law and that the code of conduct was written in consultation with Afghan women's group." Rights organizations and women activists said that by endorsing this code of conduct, Karzai was endangering "hard-won progress in women's right since the Taliban fell from power in 2001". The overall situation for Afghan women improved during the 2000s, particularly in major urban areas, but those living in rural parts of the country still faced many problems. In 2013, a female Indian author
Sushmita Banerjee was killed in
Paktika province by militants for allegedly defying Taliban diktats. She was married to an Afghan businessman and had recently relocated to Afghanistan. Earlier she had escaped two instances of execution by the Taliban in 1995 and later fled to India. Her account of the escape became a Bollywood film,
Escape from Taliban. A 2011 government report found that 25 percent of the women and girls diagnosed with
obstetric fistula, a preventable childbirth injury in which prolonged labor creates a hole in the birth canal, were younger than 16 when they married. In 2013, the United Nations published statistics showing a 20% increase in violence against women, often due to domestic violence being justified by conservative religion and culture. In February 2014, Afghanistan passed a law that includes a provision that limits the ability of government to compel some family members to be witnesses to domestic violence. Human Rights Watch described the implementation of the 2009 Law on the Elimination of Violence Against Women as "poor," noting that some cases were ignored. Under Afghan law, women across the country were permitted to drive
vehicles. They were also permitted to participate in certain international events such as
the Olympics and
robot competitions. Despite this, human rights organizations, including
Human Rights Watch and the
United States Commission on International Religious Freedom have expressed concern at women's rights in the country.
Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security ranks Afghanistan as one of the worst countries for women.
The Times noted in 2017 that the country had slowly but steadily liberalized over the years, helped by the more progressive politics by the president of Afghanistan,
Ashraf Ghani. According to the new law signed by president Ghani in September 2020, Afghan women were allowed to include their names on their children's birth certificates and identification cards. This law served as a major victory for Afghan women's rights activists, including
Laleh Osmany, who campaigned under the social media hashtag #WhereIsMyName, for several years for both the parents' names to be included.
Second Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (2021–) In August 2021, the Taliban returned to power and established a new all-male government. The interim government has not been recognized internationally, since the international community linked recognition to respect for women's and minority rights. Despite repeated assurances by the Taliban that women's rights would be respected, severe restrictions have been placed on their access to education and work. In some areas, the Taliban forced women to stop working altogether. Women have also been banned from most workplaces, including NGOs and UN agencies, with exceptions granted only in narrowly defined roles. These are the only bans in the entire world against female higher and secondary education on a formal level. A spokesman for the Taliban claims that they are "working on mechanisms to provide transportation and other facilities that are required for a safer and better educational environment." This statement was also made in 2001 during the Taliban's first rule. At that time, no solution was implemented, and as of 2021, no solution seems to be in place. and in its place, the new
Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice was installed. In mid-September 2021, the Mayor of Kabul stated that "virtually every municipal city job held by women would be re-filled by men". Women have lost many places of community since the second Taliban takeover. In December 2021, public baths for women were closed in Balkh, while in November 2022, women were forbidden to go to parks and gyms. As of January 2023, they are also banned from visiting historical sites. Places run for women or by women have also been targeted. In July 2023, women-owned beauty salons were ordered to be closed. 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 criticized the decision. The decision is expected to adversely affect the
Islamic Emirate's chances of international recognition. In March 2024, Taliban's supreme leader,
Hibatullah Akhundzada, announced the group was reinstating
flogging and
death by stoning for women, saying "the Taliban's work did not end with the
takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun." In August 2024, the Taliban enacted more policies under the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, formalising a series of decrees into a comprehensive legal framework. The law imposes firm regulations on women's behaviour and appearance, including mandatory full-body coverings, restrictions on speech and movement and limitations on interactions with men outside their immediate family. In October 2024, the
European Court of Justice ruled that gender and nationality alone were sufficient reasons to grant Afghan women asylum in Europe. Already in 2023, economic collapse, inconsistent donor support for health care, and Taliban restrictions on human rights seriously undermined the availability and quality of maternal and child health services. In December 2024, the Taliban ordered all private educational institutions in Afghanistan to stop female medical education. As a result of the order, institutions providing training in midwifery, dental prosthetics, nursing, and laboratory sciences were prohibited from enrolling or teaching female students. Heather Barr, at
Human Rights Watch, said: "If you ban women from being treated by male healthcare professionals, and then you ban women from training to become healthcare professionals, the consequences are clear: women will not have access to healthcare and will die as a result." In March 2026, Taliban authorities passed a new law which, among other permissible actions, allowed men to beat their wives as long as they didn’t break bones or leave visible, permanent wounds. Human rights campaigners have warned that this decree would further worsen the already dire situation of Afghanistan’s women. == Violence against Afghan women ==