Five years ago tomorrow, the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan for the second time. What has unfolded since then has no parallel in the modern world. Year by year, the de facto authorities have systematically dismantled the rights of women and girls, issuing more than 100 decrees that have stripped away their rights and institutionalized discrimination against them.
Afghanistan is the only country in the world where women and girls face such far-reaching restrictions on their education, work, movement, public participation, and legal equality. In the past year alone, new decrees and edicts have further restricted women’s and girls’ access to justice and formally removed equality between men and women before the law.
For example, under Decree Number 12, a husband is only criminally liable for violence within marriage if he causes severe and visible physical injuries – and his wife must prove it in court, with her male guardian, who may be the very person who harmed her.
Under Decree Number 18, men retain the right to divorce, but a woman either needs her husband’s permission or to go through lengthy legal processes. The decree also implicitly permits child marriage, further eroding the rights and protection of women and girls.
Enforcement of these decrees and edicts has intensified, with thousands of officials now patrolling the streets with broad powers of detention and surveillance. The gates of high schools remain locked to girls. The halls of universities remain open to men only. And a growing shortage of women health workers – a consequence of the education bans – is making it harder for women to receive health care, particularly in communities where custom prevents women from being treated by male doctors.
We are seeing just how profoundly these restrictions are reshaping women’s everyday lives. More than half of the 3,200 women we surveyed say they now leave their homes only once or twice a month. Nearly three-quarters say they feel unsafe leaving home without a male guardian, or mahram. And more than half say they avoid public spaces, such as markets and health facilities, altogether. Women described a constant need to be aware of their dress, speech, and movements to avoid sanctions, scrutiny, or judgment.
This systematic loss of rights, freedoms, and opportunities has triggered a mental health crisis among women and girls. Seven in ten women we surveyed describe their mental health as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’. These figures tell us what five years of systematic and growing exclusion looks like in the life of an Afghan woman.
In the face of all these extraordinary restrictions, I hear the message over and over from the Afghan women I meet: see us, don’t leave us, stand with us, and continue to support us. Yet, at precisely the moment when Afghan women need that support the most, it is being pulled away. Across Afghanistan, international aid cuts are forcing women’s organizations to cut services, lay off staff and, in some cases, consider closing their doors altogether. In fact, more than half of the 74 women’s organizations UN Women surveyed in April this year are likely to suspend work or close in the next year due to these aid cuts.
Women’s organizations are one of the last remaining lifelines for Afghan women and girls, delivering life-saving services including protection from violence, healthcare, mental health and psychosocial support, livelihoods and humanitarian assistance. Yet, nearly three-quarters of these organizations experienced funding cuts in 2025. Two-thirds reported they had six months or less of operational funding remaining.
More than half of these organizations said they had scaled back gender-based violence support, and two out of three said they had already scaled back education and income support. And these pressures extend beyond women’s organizations. In June, a survey of more than 100 NGOs and UN entities found that more than half had been forced to let Afghan women staff go because of funding cuts.
It simply doesn’t make sense. Because at the same time that funding is disappearing, the needs of Afghan women and girls are growing. Every women’s organization we surveyed in April reported an increase in women’s economic vulnerability and poverty. And more than eight in ten reported an increase in early and forced marriage.
Afghanistan also remains prone to natural disasters and climate shocks, which can push already vulnerable families even further into crisis. This year, more than 10.7 million Afghan women and girls need humanitarian assistance. And 4.9 million women and children are expected to need treatment for malnutrition.
So we are facing a stark contradiction. Despite operating in the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis. Despite being one of the last remaining lifelines for many vulnerable women and girls. Despite needs rising as poverty deepens and restrictions on women intensify…
The organizations that can still reach and support Afghan women are being asked to do more and more – with less and less. Five years into this crisis, this is the moment to deepen our commitment to Afghan women – not retreat from it.
So I urge all governments and other international donors to continue investing in Afghan women and girls. To increase, not cut, their foreign aid.
Because to do anything less is to walk away from Afghan women and girls would be another step towards normalization.
There is nothing normal about excluding half a country’s population from public life.
There was nothing normal about it five years ago.
There is nothing normal about it today.
And we must never allow it to become normal.
