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Five Years of Taliban Rule Have Erased Afghan Women From Public Life, UN Experts Say

UN experts label the Taliban's legal restrictions persecution and UNESCO reports 2.4 million girls barred from secondary school, signaling long-term harm to Afghan society.

An Afghan boy buys a Taliban flag from a roadside vendor in Afghanistan's Ghazni province on August 14, 2026 ahead of the fifth anniversary of the Taliban government's return to power.
A member of Taliban security personnel stands alongside women who wait in a queue for food assistance in Kabul on March 25, 2025.
Taliban security personnel destroy a poppy plantation in the Yaftal Sufla district of the Badakhshan province in Afghanistan, on May 4, 2026.

Overview

  • The Taliban marked five years in power on Saturday with public celebrations while U.N. agencies issued stark warnings about tightened legal bans that have removed many women from work, school and public spaces.
  • UNESCO estimates 2.4 million girls are currently excluded from secondary education, a rise from last year that the agency says reverses two decades of progress and will reduce the pool of female teachers and professionals.
  • U.N. special procedures experts stated the system of gendered decrees amounts to persecution and can be characterised as "gender apartheid," and they urged states to fund investigative and accountability mechanisms.
  • Humanitarian indicators are worsening as more than 17 million people faced acute food insecurity last winter, nearly 4 million children are acutely malnourished, and the U.N. appeal is only a quarter funded.
  • Funding shortfalls and donor cuts threaten local aid: UN Women warns that more than half of surveyed Afghan women’s organisations could close within a year, while international responses remain split and formal recognition of the Taliban is limited to a few states.