Gender Apartheid: Two years of Taliban rule and its impact on women

Image: Wakil Kohsar / AFP

Members of Afghanistan's Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice arrive to attend a press conference in Kabul on August 14, 2023. Despite reassurances by the Taliban authorities that any restrictions imposed on women—particularly in terms of access to education—would be temporary, the facts on the ground have demonstrated a systematic segregation, marginalisation, and persecution of women

Wakil KOHSAR / AFP

Image: Ali Khara / Reuters

Afghan beauticians shutter a beauty salon permanently in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 24, 2023. As part of a Taliban administration announcement early this month that the women-only spaces were forbidden under Shariah law, beauty salons that employed over 60,000 women have shut down.

Image: Ali Khara / Reuters

An Afghan woman walks among Taliban soldiers at a checkpoint in Kabul, Afghanistan, July 6, 2023. Under watchful eyes, women are being erased from public life, effectively imprisoned within their own society by recent decrees that ban women from public parks and gyms, and limit the number of days they can go shopping (and then too only with a male relative).

Image: Shafiullah Kakar / AFP

Afghan bodybuilders compete in a provincial bodybuilding competition in Jalalabad on July 20, 2023. Menfolk who oppose the Taliban’s policies on women are afraid to speak up due to Taliban’s criminalisation of the support for women. Male allies have been threatened, jailed, and even tortured for the mere act of expressing support for their female compatriots.

Image: Elise Blanchard / WaPo via Getty Images

A young woman attends a counselling session at the mental health department of Herat Hospital in western Afghanistan on May 31, 2023. According to a UN report, 8% of women surveyed knew a woman who had attempted suicide.

Image: Mohsen Karmi / AFP

An Afghan couple follow rituals as they get married in a mass wedding ceremony in Herat on July 6, 2023. Since girls are allowed to do nothing, restricting them to their homes, families resort to marrying the girls off forcefully, regardless of their consent.

Image: Sanaullah SEIAM / AFP

Afghan burqa-clad women receive food from foreign aid in Kandahar on August 10, 2023. An economic and humanitarian crisis was set in motion since the Taliban takeover, as international aid dried up and sanctions were imposed. The international community continues to grapple with ways to engage with the Taliban authorities, the restrictions on women's rights have become a key obstacle in the negotiations over aid and recognition.

Image: Ali Khara / Reuters

Children of Taliban members, dressed in military uniforms, hold toy weapons as they walk on a snow-covered street in Kabul, Afghanistan, January 29, 2023.  During their first rule of Afghanistan from 1996–2001, the Taliban were notorious internationally for their misogyny and violence against women. Taliban’s return has reinstated their reputation.