RASC News Agency: A new investigative study reveals a devastating picture of life under Taliban rule: more than 90% of Afghanistani women have been driven out of the workforce since the group’s return to power in August 2021. The findings underscore the profound consequences of the Taliban’s gender-apartheid regime, which has not only stripped women of employment but also imposed severe social, psychological, and economic hardships. The research, conducted by the Women and Children Advocacy and Research Network, a Canada-based organization, meticulously documents the impact of Taliban edicts on women and girls across ten provincescKabul, Balkh, Badakhshan, Herat, Nangarhar, Ghor, Ghazni, Logar, Bamyan, and Wardak between October 2024 and March 2025.
Titled “The Impact of Taliban Decrees on Women and Girls in Afghanistan,” the report exposes how the Taliban’s ultra-conservative directives have fueled a surge in gender-based violence, economic pressure, psychological trauma, and social exclusion. With the dismantling of legal protections and the erasure of women from public life, many victims of abuse remain silent due to fear, stigma, and the absence of support mechanisms.
According to the findings:
36% of women surveyed reported experiencing psychological, economic, physical, or sexual violence. An additional 65.4% said they had witnessed acts of violence against other women.vYet, most cases remain unreported due to widespread fear of retaliation, family pressure, and the lack of legal recourse under Taliban-controlled institutions.
The study further highlights a remarkable level of public resistance to the Taliban’s ban on female education. Despite the regime’s closure of girls’ secondary and high schools and the purging of women from government and non-government offices, 98.5% of respondents voiced support for girls’ right to education. The Taliban’s sweeping restrictions have also targeted women’s mobility. Over 95% of women surveyed reported being barred from traveling alone without a male guardian or using public transportation measures that have intensified social isolation, poverty, and domestic abuse.
Researchers warn that these policies are not isolated cultural impositions but constitute a systematic and ideologically driven campaign of gender apartheid. The Taliban have not merely restricted women’s rights they have engineered an environment where women are erased from public life, stripped of autonomy, and confined to domestic spaces under threat of coercion. In light of these findings, the research network has issued an urgent appeal to the international community:
Recognize the current situation in Afghanistan as gender apartheid. Hold the Taliban accountable for their violations of international conventions, particularly the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW). Ensure the meaningful, equal, and safe participation of women in political and decision-making processes at all levels.
The report offers a damning indictment of Taliban rule, which continues to operate with impunity while dismantling decades of hard-won progress for Afghanistani women. As the Taliban seek international recognition, the global community is now faced with a critical choice: either confront the regime’s systematic oppression or risk enabling a gender-based tyranny that may set a dangerous precedent far beyond Afghanistan’s borders.
