Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed policies severely restricting rights—particularly those of women and girls. They have banned women from many forms of employment and prohibited girls and women from attending secondary school and university. The Taliban have also carried out broad censorship and have detained and tortured journalists and activists. Groups affiliated with the Islamic State have carried out bombings targeting ethnic Hazaras-Shias and others, killing and injuring hundreds.

The Afghan economy collapsed after August 2021 when the US, World Bank, and other donors cut off foreign development assistance. Over 90 percent of the Afghan population faces food insecurity along with a rise in malnutrition-related disease.

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  • Women's Rights
    Pregnant women wait in the corridor of the maternity hospital run by Doctors Without Borders in Khost, Afghanistan, December 8, 2023.
    Afghanistan’s Taliban Ban Medical Training for Women
  • Afghanistan
    The Taliban flag flies over a National Radio Television of Takhar (RTA) building in Talogan, Afghanistan, on October 15, 2024.
    UN Report Portrays Afghanistan’s Destroyed Media
  • Human Rights Council
    Since taking power in August 2021, the Taliban have imposed ever-more extreme restrictions on human rights. The rights of women and girls have been especially affected: they have been barred from education beyond sixth grade and many forms of employment, and banned from singing, reading aloud, or even being heard outside their houses. LGBTQI+ people face arbitrary detention, extortion, torture and other ill-treatment and unlawful killing. Taliban forces have summarily executed and forcibly disappeared former government employees, especially security officers. Ethnic and religious minorities face significant risks of persecution and discrimination. Journalists, human rights defenders, and protesters, particularly women, face harassment, arbitrary detention, and violent reprisals. The Taliban have imposed cruel and inhuman punishments, including public executions, flogging and other forms of corporal punishment. The ongoing humanitarian crisis, compounded by economic collapse and the Taliban’s ban on women aid workers, has led to widespread poverty and food insecurity. Women and girls face limits on their freedom of movement that impacts their access to health care, resulting systemic abuses of reproductive rights and the right to health more generally.

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