United Nations

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.