Who is the Taliban?
The Taliban is and extremist Islamic military movement that first ruled in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001. During that period, women were completely removed from public life. After the US invasion in 2001 Taliban lost power. However, in August 2021, after the withdrawal of US and NATO forces, the Taliban regained control of Afghanistan. When they returned to power, the Taliban leaders claimed that they would respect women‘s rights within the Islamic law. However, over the following years the Taliban imposed many restrictions on women and girls. Nowdays, Afghanistan is described by the United Nations as the most severe women’s rights crisis within the world.
Restrictions on freedom of women
Women are required to wear strict Islamic clothing - burqa - that includes full black body coverings and face veils. In July 2025, the Taliban arrested many women in Kabul for violating the extreme dress code. Women accused of moral crimes may face public flogging, detention, torture or public humilation. Amnesty International warns us that the Taliban regulations normalize domestic violence and discrimination against women.
According to reports, the Taliban laws increasingly target women’s visibility in public. Human Rights Watch reported that women’s voices were banned from certain public performances. The Taliban require women to be accompanied by a mahran (male accompaniment) when traveling. Furthermore, they instructed the bussiness centres and health clinics not to serve women without a mahran. This directly affects women’s acces to healthcare and limits women in their career perspectives.
By 2026, Afghanistan has become the only country in the world where girls were banned from secondary schools and universities. Women have been banned from many jobs including goverment jobs, media organisations, sports organisation, politics, journalism and their own companies were shut down. Due to that women become more finacially dependant on male relatives. Female athletes have been excluded from sports in Afghanistan. Many of them fled the country after 2021. This all together shows how the Taliban is attempting to erase women from the society.
New marriage laws
In 2026 the Taliban laws effectively legalized child marriage. The restrictions in women’s education, poverty and the loss of women’s rights create an environment, in which girls are forced to marry at very young age. The new laws do not include fixed minimum marriage age and puberty is now considered as sufficient age for marriage. The girls are forced to marry someone their family chose, even though they disagree. Their consent is not needed. Due to the forced marriages the amount of abuses increases rapidly and girls are treated as property.
Why does the Taliban do it?
The Taliban bases its ideology on the Islamic beliefs. They claim that women should remain in domestic roles and that gender segregation is necessary for strict religious society. Taliban uses religion to mantain political control and preserve patriarchal power structure. By these acts they supress women’s rights and hide it under religious belief. However, many Muslim countries reject the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam.
By 2026, Afghanistan under the Taliban rule represents one of the most extreme systems of gender discrimination in the present world. Women and girls have lost educational freedom, employement opportunities, political participitation, freedom of movement and personal autonomy. Despite enourmous pressure, Afghan women continue resisting through online campaigns, activism, journalism, international advocacy or secret schools. Their struggle has become one of the defining human rights issues of the 21. century.
Chris Dostálová
Chris Dostálová