BACK TO REPORTS
O
C
big-UN Logo navy
SHARE
Facebook-f Linkedin-in
BACK TO REPORTS
Women and girls in Afghanistan face widespread and systematic discrimination, particularly since the fall of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan on 15 August 2021.

Nowhere else in the world have recent attacks on the rights of women and girls been as widespread, systematic and all-encompassing as in Afghanistan.

Every aspect of women’s and girls’ lives is being restricted under the guise of morality and through the instrumentalisation of religion.
It is impossible for women and girls to exercise their human rights – the discriminatory and restrictive environment, the climate of fear, and the lack of recourse make it impossible.
The severe and systematic deprivation of women’s and girls’ fundamental rights by reason of their sex characteristics and gender, perpetrated by the Taliban’s discriminatory and misogynistic policies, and supported by harsh enforcement methods, constitutes gender persecution – a crime against humanity.
That deprivation of rights also constitutes an institutionalised framework of gender apartheid, in need of further normative development.
We met and interviewed dozens of Afghan women: Human rights defenders, journalists, lawyers, academics, entrepreneurs, teachers, students, social service providers and businesswomen. We also utilised a survey of more than 2,000 Afghan women in the country.*
We saw repressive
conditions – yet our

conversations with women

and girls highlighted their

We saw repressive conditions –

yet our conversations with

women and girls highlighted their

resilience and strength.

Afghan women and girls continue to resist. They struggle for their dignity. With strength and determination, they continue to exercise their rights through creative, peaceful initiatives.

The international community must remain engaged with Afghan women and support accountability for the serious human rights violations that are occurring. ‘Talk to us, not about us.’

*Survey: Impact of Taliban Edicts on Afghan Women’s Economic Conditions and Mental Health, March 2023. Women’s Voices for an Inclusive and Sustainable Peace. BISHNAW-WAWRA, Organization for Policy Research and Development Studies.

Systemic gender-based discrimination

Every person has a fundamental right to equality and non-discrimination, including the right not to experience any distinction on the basis of sex and/or gender.

The de facto authorities claim that they respect the treaties ratified by Afghanistan in accordance with sharia law, a vague statement that does not clarify their relation to international human rights law.

They perpetuate the most extreme forms of gender-based discrimination and generalised censorship through restrictive edicts targeting women and girls, the abolition of legal protections and accountability mechanisms for gender-based violence, and the ongoing denial of rights.

Edicts, decrees, declarations 
and directives restrict rights

READ more

Hear from women: On edicts

READ more

Representation 
in political and public life

READ more

Hear from 
women: On participation

READ more

Participation 
in political and public life

READ more

Arrests and detentions

READ more

Edicts, decrees,
declarations 

and directives
restrict rights

READ more

Hear from women:
On edicts

READ more

Representation 

in political and
public life

READ more

Hear from 

women: On
participation

READ more

Participation 

in political and
public life

READ more

Arrests and
detentions

READ more

Definitions

Maharam, or mahram:

A family member with whom marriage is unlawful, and around whom a woman does not need to wear hijab.

Baad marriage:

Marrying a woman or girl to someone as blood price or to achieve peace with another family.

Gender persecution and apartheid

Gender persecution is occurring in Afghanistan.The Taliban is severely depriving women and girls fundamental rights.

The Taliban is punishing those who transgress its rights-violating edicts, enforcing severe deprivation of fundamental rights through acts or crimes of violence, such as arbitrary detention, torture, or inhuman or degrading treatment.

Substantial first-hand accounts give rise to a critical concern that women and girls are being targeted for gender persecution because of their sex characteristics and the social constructs and criteria used to define gender roles, behaviour, activities and attributes.
Gender persecution constitutes a crime against humanity under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Similarly, ‘apartheid’ was first used in 1999 to describe the treatment of women under Taliban rule. ‘Gender apartheid’ framing emphasises that exclusion of and discrimination against women and girls is institutionalised and, as such, is a grave and systematic human rights violation.
Apartheid framing also highlights the duty of the international community to take effective action to end the practice.
  • Ensure the compliance of Afghanistan with its international human rights obligations by rescinding all discriminatory edicts and instructions issued since August 2021 that specifically target women and girls.
  • Ensure equal representation and meaningful participation of women and girls, from all religious and ethnic groups, in all decision-making processes affecting their lives.
  • Desist from committing threats of or acts of violence, including arbitrary detention, sexual abuse, or any form of torture, ill-treatment or punishment against women and girls for allegedly violating the edicts or for protesting peacefully.
  • Investigate cases of violence against women, including women protesters and prisoners, bring perpetrators to justice and provide reparations.
  • Immediately restore equal access to quality education for girls and women at all levels.
  • Allow schools and universities to unconditionally accept female students in all courses and reinstate all female teachers.
  • Remove all restrictions and barriers to women’s rights, including repealing the imposition and enforcement of compulsory dress codes and maharam, both generally and specifically in relation to employment, education and freedom of movement.
  • Immediately restore the right of women to work for the United Nations and international NGOs, and in the civil service.
  • Take steps to promote women’s active participation in public life, the economic sector, humanitarian operations, development programmes and recovery efforts, and in the administration of justice.
  • Restore legal protections and the fundamental rights of women and girls by respecting the legal framework in force prior to August 2021, including the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women and the Civil Code.
  • Reinstate the former judiciary, the specialised courts, and women’s police units and shelters that were created to assist survivors of gender-based violence.
  • Support free and independent media and civil society by opening up space for civil society activists, journalists and human rights defenders, especially women, to exercise their legitimate rights without intimidation, harassment, fear of detention or prosecution in accordance with international human rights protections and standards on freedom of expression, assembly and association.
  • Ensure that women and girls have access to the full range of quality health services, including sexual and reproductive health services and information, paying specific attention to the additional barriers faced by rural women and to the mental health needs of all women and girls.
  • Take steps to establish a gender-equal intra-Afghan reconciliation process to determine the country’s future, fully inclusive of the country’s ethnic and religious diversity, including the drafting of a new constitution and legal framework reflecting the aspirations of the people, their historical, social and cultural context, and protecting all their rights, including the recognition of women’s and girls’ human rights and accountability for serious human rights violations and crimes.
  • Continue to engage constructively and facilitate visits to the country by the Special Rapporteur and other United Nations human rights mechanisms, and with the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women.
  • Ensure that human rights of women and girls in Afghanistan are central to all policy decisions and engagement with the de facto authorities, in accordance with the recommendations above.
  • Ensure the representative, equal and meaningful participation of Afghan women in all deliberations concerning the country’s future, including while defining the international community’s policies towards the de facto authorities.
  • Mandate a report on gender apartheid as an institutionalised system of discrimination, segregation, humiliation and exclusion of women and girls. Develop further normative standards and tools, and galvanise international legal condemnation and action to end gender apartheid and ensure it is not repeated.
  • Support, with long-term flexible funding among other means, women-led organisations operating inside Afghanistan, including new businesses and civil society organisations working on women’s rights and gender equality.
  • Take all possible steps to support access to education for all girls.
  • Fulfil the calls made by the United Nations for support to address the humanitarian and human rights crises facing Afghanistan, while consistently maintaining a unified and principled approach, and ensuring that marginalised groups receive adequate attention.
  • Consult Afghan women as equal partners to inform policy priorities and decision-making, amplify advocacy led by Afghan women inside the country, and ensure that their voices inform the work and decisions of the international community and humanitarian organisations.
  • Grant support and protection to all Afghan women and girls who are outside Afghanistan, and take measures to ensure their long-term security, including by granting them refugee, protective or regular status, facilitating their safe resettlement and expanding the provision of educational scholarships and mental health services.
  • Take measures to ensure that gender persecution against women and girls in Afghanistan is fully investigated so that perpetrators and complicit actors can be held accountable.
  • Support international and Afghan civil society justice-seeking efforts for Afghan women and girls for violations of their human rights, including through the International Criminal Court, the International Court of Justice, universal jurisdiction and all applicable human rights mechanisms.
  • Keep the situation of women and girls high on the international agenda and continue to create opportunities for Afghan women to address the bodies of the United Nations.
  • Support further collaboration among thematic special procedures and the Special Rapporteur, including joint follow-up by the Working Group on discrimination against women and girls on the recommendations made in the present report.
  • Ensure a unified and principled approach based on human rights when engaging with the de facto authorities and within all United Nations entities and agencies, fully recognising the complementarity of international human rights law, international humanitarian law and international criminal law.
  • Maintain a commitment to the secure employment of female Afghan staff and ensure ethnic diversity.
  • Ensure women’s equal and meaningful participation in different forms of dialogue with the de facto authorities.
  • Establish a platform for women’s direct engagement.
  • Take measures to protect women human rights defenders from reprisals.
  • Continue to take concrete steps towards supporting protection from and accountability for the grave and systematic violations of women’s and girls’ human rights.
  • Continue to call for the reinstatement and enforcement of provisions that protect women and girls, and which criminalise numerous violations of their rights.
  • Include women from Afghan civil society as equal partners to inform planning, programming, advocacy and policy priorities. 
  • Prioritise gender-sensitive assessments to understand the specific needs and obstacles that women and girls in situations of heightened vulnerability or disadvantage face, and duly address them.
  • Ensure that Afghan women and girls have due access to United Nations spaces, and that their voices and realities, especially of those most marginalised, are duly considered.
     

Here’s how you can make a difference

All actions contribute to change.
Here are four you can take today.

SHARE

Share this report

Click the ‘share’ links below to help us spread the word and raise awareness.

Facebook-f Linkedin-in

ASK

Ask your government to denounce the widespread and systemic oppression of women and girls in Afghanistan and support accountability efforts

Don’t have the words?

Here’s a letter template you can use.

SUPPORT

Join a movement

Get involved with or donate to women-led organisations working on human rights and gender equality, in Afghanistan or elsewhere. Various petitions call for a legal framework for gender apartheid – consider adding your voice to those.

LEARN

Connect with us

Follow the Working Group on Discrimination Against Women and Girls on Facebook and Twitter/X, and the Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan on Twitter/X, as well as other relevant UN human rights Special Procedures to keep up with news from the UN and find out how you can help.

Share now

Facebook-f Linkedin-in
DOWNLOAD FULL REPORT (PDF)

UNWGDAW © 2023

Made by Mahlab

Women and girls are disproportionately impacted by poverty and inequality

 

In 2022:

  • 388 million women and girls lived in extreme poverty
  • 62.8% of these women and girls lived in sub-Saharan Africa
  • 20.9% lived in Central and South Asia

Extreme inequality has also deepened since 2020.

  • The richest 1% of the world has seized nearly two thirds of all new wealth.
  • That’s almost twice as much money as the remaining 99% of the world’s population.

Edicts, decrees, declarations and directives 
restrict rights

Freedom of movement, attire, behaviour, and access to education, work, health and justice have been restricted by more than 50 edicts since September 2021. 

Restrictions have escalated, until:

  • All forms of education beyond grade six are banned for girls.
  • Women prohibited from entering parks in Kabul; women prohibited from using gyms; women in Faryab banned from public baths, gyms, sports clubs and amusement parks. 
  • Women banned from boarding domestic and international flights, or travelling by car more than 72km, without a ‘maharam’ (male relative)
  • Women government workers asked to stay home from work
  • Right of women to work with national and international non-government organisations ‘suspended’
  • Afghan women banned from working in the United Nations

Hear from women: On edicts

"Day by day, the walls close in."
"Day by day, the walls close in.

“Day by day, the walls close in,” one Afghan woman told us about the effect of the edicts.

Women have described feeling “suffocated” by the ongoing announcements, left “without hope”.

Representation in political and public life

Prior to August 2021, women comprised:

  • 27% of members in the lower house of parliament
  • 22% in the upper house
  • 30 % in the civil service

Women held key roles in the Government, independent commissions and the judiciary. 

Now, women are wholly excluded from political and public life in Afghanistan – there is not a single woman holding public or political office.

On 18 September 2021, the offices of the Ministry for Women’s Affairs were converted into the offices of the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, known for its notorious record of suppressing women’s rights.

Hear from women: On participation

"At early press conferences, we asked 'What is your intention for women and girls?',"

a woman journalist monitoring restrictions explained. “We were told, ‘wait, wait, you will understand our position on women’. Initially, we thought this meant that a few small things would be changed and we could continue to work, go to school, etc. But over time, we have come to the realisation it was their intention to slowly erase women.”

Participation in political and public life

Women accounted for more than 30% of voters between 2004 and 2019. 

Today they are excluded from all forms of participation in political and public life.

Since August 2021, women have led peaceful public demonstrations demanding rights to education, work, participation in public life, and freedom of movement and expression.

Arrests and detentions

Women’s peaceful protests have been met with excessive use of force, intimidation, arrest, and arbitrary detention, possibly amounting to enforced disappearance. 

  • October 2022: Zarifa Yaqubi arrested with four men at an approved press conference about a women’s protest movement. Held in incommunicado detention for 40 days despite no charges against her.
  • March 2023: Matiullah Wesa, founder of a local NGO that champions girls’ education rights, arrested. 

Despite ongoing threats, intimidation and fear of arrest, torture and detention, women continue to be the primary advocates for their rights, demonstrating in adaptive, creative and courageous ways.

Education

Girls and women are completely banned from all secondary and tertiary education – Afghanistan is the only country in the world where this is the case.

Among 2,112 survey respondents, the ban on education was the greatest individual concern.

"It has been five months and 10 days since we were barred from university … I am a prisoner of my gender."
"We want to go back to school."

Employment

The de facto authorities are violating women’s rights to work. 

  • Women in the media were subjected to the first restrictions. Before August 2021, more than 1,700 women worked in media. Following the fall of Kabul, 80% of women journalists lost their jobs. Women journalists are no longer given access to press conferences. Women are required to wear masks on television. 
  • Women can not be judges or lawyers. Most Republic-era judges, including all 250 women, have been removed  from the bench. The legal practice licences of all women lawyers have been effectively suspended – with the process to renew licences open only to men. Women lawyers and judges are currently in danger; their livelihoods have largely vanished and many are in hiding or exile because of threats.
  • Women are barred from working in NGOs, seriously affecting NGOs’ ability to deliver vital services.
  • UN and embassies: Afghan women are banned from working in the United Nations, and most foreign embassies have been informed that Afghan women can no longer work in their offices. 
  • Home-based self-employment has become the predominant form of women’s participation in the labour market. But this too has been severely affected by the extremely restrictive socioeconomic policies – for example, women report that suppliers refuse to sell them materials on the grounds that a woman should not be heading a business and that, at a minimum, they should be accompanied by a maharam. 

In the survey of 2,112 women, 37.8% said the most important change that would help them improve their economic situation is the ‘ability to pursue your career outside of the home’.

Freedom of movement

"All girls and women in this country live under house arrest. We feel depressed and hopeless. We have no future."

Women and girls are banned from hammams (public baths – a health and menstrual hygiene concern), parks and gyms. 

Women are required to observe ‘proper hijab’ – and ‘the first and best form of observing hijab’ is by not leaving the home without a reason.

Women are increasingly scrutinised and questioned in public, and the maharam requirement is enforced at checkpoints. 

Bans, with mandatory requirements of maharam and ‘proper hijab’, violate women’s right to freedom of movement and human dignity, and are inherently discriminatory, humiliating and derogatory.

Health care, sexual and reproductive rights

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate in 2017 was 638 per 100,000 live births – higher than triple the global rate. Family planning was also relatively inaccessible in the country – in 2010 family planning access sat at 22%, compared to a global contraceptive prevalence of 63.3%.

Conflict, insecurity, poverty, discriminatory traditional practices, inadequate health facilities and lack of education contribute to unequal access to and provision of health care for women and girls. And across that board, the situation has now worsened.

  • Women have been unable to give birth in clinics owing to the costs or insufficient resources in the clinics. 
  • Women are routinely faced with delivering their babies without professional assistance or incurring significant debt 
  • Access to contraceptives is limited, and women seeking to enter pharmacies alone have reportedly been denied access. 
  • Access to abortion care is generally also limited and does not reach international standards. 

While visiting a maternity hospital in Kabul, the experts noticed the absence of first-year interns – a stark reminder of the impact on women’s health care of the ban on education for girls. 

As girls and women can only receive care from female doctors, the restrictions banning women and girls from education and employment risk multiple preventable deaths, which could amount to femicide.

Health care: Mental health

"Unless the restrictions are reversed rapidly, the stage 
may be set for multiple preventable deaths that could amount to femicide."

– Dorothy Estrada-Tanck, Chair of the UN Working Group on discrimination against women and girls 

Counter to Taliban claims that suicides have decreased and mental health has improved since August 2021, reports of depression and suicide are widespread, especially among adolescent girls prevented from pursuing education.

 

In March 2023:

 

47.6%

of 2,112 survey respondents knew at least one woman or girl who had suffered from anxiety or depression since August 2021.

7.8%

knew a woman or girl who had attempted suicide. 

Top replies to the question: ‘What would help improve the mental health of women and girls in your community?’:

 

30.1%

Family understanding

21.4%

Positive prospects for the future

18%

Safe spaces to meet 
and exercise

Family and cultural life

"Many families feel it is better to sell a child into marriage than for her to die of starvation."

Harmful practices and persisting forms of inequalities include:

  • Forced and/or child marriage
  • Polygamy
  • Dowry obligations
  • Discriminatory requirements for guardianship and custody of children
  • Legal and practical inequalities in divorce and division of matrimonial assets
  • Lack of access to the right to remarry following dissolution of marriage or death of the husband
  • Unequal status of widows, and of women and girls in relation to inheritances

Aof 2021:

  • 35% of girls married before the age of 18
  • 17% of girls married before the age of 15

Between December 2022 and February 2023, the International Organization for Migration (IOM) received:

  • 578 reports of forced marriage
  • 361 reports of child marriage
  • 118 reports of undocumented returnees selling their children to service debt

The de facto authorities have also limited women’s and girls’ participation in cultural life and in sports – many women involved in sports, art and music have fled to exile.

Gender-based violence and killings (femicide)

In 2017, 50.8% of women between the ages of 15 and 49 had experienced intimate partner physical and/or sexual violence.

Now, with the restrictive environment and economic pressures resulting in significant tensions, systemic discrimination normalising gender-based violence, and services to detect and respond to gender-based violence in the private sphere suspended, spousal and intrafamily violence against women and girls has increased. 

The experts are deeply concerned about reports of gender-related killings, or femicide. These stem from discriminatory gender roles and punishments for what the de facto authorities call ‘inappropriate’ female behaviour. 

A lack of documentation of the unlawful deaths of women and girls, as well as a lack of legal protection and recourse, means femicide is practised with impunity.

Lack of access to legal remedies and justice

"Such matters are private and should remain in the family."

– Reported police response to a woman seeking legal help to escape family violence

The lack of a clear and uniform legal system contributes to the perpetuation of violence against women and an absence of accountability.

The de facto authorities have abolished the Law on the Elimination of Violence against Women, related specialised courts and family response units of the national police.

The removal of women judges and suspension of female lawyers’ right to practise removes any possibility for women to seek justice through the judicial system.

Women seeking a divorce or fleeing abusive domestic situations are most seriously affected, as they are routinely forced to return to violent relationships. 

In one extreme case, a woman was ordered by a de facto court to marry a man from whom she had officially separated under the Republic. She refused and was imprisoned, along with her current husband and her father. Her young daughter was forcibly married to a member of the former fiancé’s family in baad – to settle a dispute. 

Any divorce cases settled during the Republic era may be reviewed by a judge of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. In one district, some 50 instances of men bringing such cases to the court have been reported.

In the absence of women specialised courts, female judges, prosecutors and defence lawyers, dependency on traditional dispute mechanisms is expected to increase, exacerbating women’s lack of access to justice.

Intersectional discrimination and marginalisation

Women and girls experience multiple and intersecting forms of discrimination that reinforce and sustain each other. 

Some women and girls are disproportionately affected by lack of access to services and means to navigate the restrictive environment, particularly those who:

  • Are part of marginalised ethnic and religious groups (such as the Hazara Shias) 
  • Live in poverty
  • Are in rural areas
  • Have no male family members

Women and girls with disabilities face additional challenges in their access to services, education, employment and support services.

Girls and young women living in poverty face greater vulnerability to forced and child marriage.

Undocumented returnee and migrant women and girls face significant barriers to sustaining themselves amid economic crisis. 

Women and girls assigned female at birth who are lesbian, bisexual, transgender or gender diverse face significant discrimination and challenges over their lifetime that are largely due to societal expectations. They live in fear of being identified – resulting in extreme violence and death.

Jump to sections:

JUNE 2023

Situation of women and
girls in Afghanistan:

Women and girls in Afghanistan on widespread and systematic discrimination, and action needed now.