Afghan Women Under Siege: The Gender Apartheid No One Stops

Four Years After the Taliban Takeover, Afghan Women Face Systematic Erasure

Four years after the Taliban’s return to power, Afghan women live under what international experts now openly describe as gender apartheid. In 2025, the picture is stark: exclusion from education, public life, and work; collapsing healthcare systems; rising maternal deaths; and daily enforcement of restrictive laws that strip women of their basic freedoms.

Education: A Generation Denied

Since August 2021, Afghan girls have been banned from secondary schools and universities. By mid-2025, nearly eight out of ten young women are excluded from education, employment, or training, four times the rate of young men. Women are barred not only from schools but also from teacher training and medical education, cutting off the next generation of female professionals.

Some resist through secret schools and underground learning initiatives. Across 16 provinces, networks of Afghan women risk arrest to keep lessons alive for thousands of girls. Yet these efforts, however heroic, cannot fill the gap of a national education system stripped of half its students.

Work and Public Life: Shut Out Completely

The Taliban have expelled women from nearly all spheres of public life. Women are barred from most government jobs, media roles, and NGOs. By 2025, zero women hold national or local government positions.

The economic toll is staggering. According to UN Women, female participation in the workforce has plummeted to 24%, compared to 89% for men. Employment among women fell by 25% in just 18 months, while men’s employment dropped only 7%. Analysts estimate the erasure of women from public roles has already cost Afghanistan’s economy over $1 billion in lost productivity.

Despite this, women’s economic resilience persists. Informal women-led businesses have tripled since 2020, often run from homes or small workshops. Yet these ventures remain fragile: 70% operate without licenses, 60% report harassment or obstruction by Taliban authorities, and only 5% gain access to formal bank loans.

Health Crisis: Rising Maternal Deaths

Afghanistan’s health system is collapsing under the Taliban’s restrictions. Women can only access healthcare when accompanied by a male guardian, and the ban on training new female medical staff has left hospitals without midwives and doctors.

The result is devastating. Maternal mortality is projected to rise by 50%, with current estimates showing at least 638 mothers dying per 100,000 births, one of the highest rates in the world. Access to contraception and emergency care has also plummeted, fueling a surge in child marriages and forced marriages.

WARNING: Graphic images

Mobility and Daily Restrictions: A Society of Control

In 2025, Afghan women face near-total exclusion from public spaces. They are barred from parks, gyms, and public transport unless accompanied by a male guardian. Strict hijab laws are enforced brutally.

UN monitors documented at least 234 cases of public flogging of women and children between April and June 2025 alone. In one widely reported case, a young woman was flogged 39 times in public for visiting a market without a guardian. Such spectacles serve as public warnings and tools of fear.

The psychological toll is immense. Rising numbers of women have taken their own lives, citing despair, forced marriages, and domestic abuse. Suicide is now one of the leading causes of death among Afghan women of reproductive age.

International Response: Crimes Against Humanity

In January 2025, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, including Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, on charges of crimes against humanity and gender persecution. In July 2025, the warrants were upheld, a rare recognition of systemic abuse on a global judicial stage.

UN agencies and rights organizations describe Afghanistan as the only country in the world where women are effectively erased from public life by law. UN Women calls it the “widest gender gap globally,” with Afghan women achieving just 17% of their potential compared to men, less than a third of the global average.

WARNING: Graphic images

Resistance and Resilience

Despite repression, Afghan women have not stopped resisting. Underground schools, online learning networks, and women-led media platforms like Radio Begum and Begum TV continue to amplify women’s voices and provide education in defiance of Taliban restrictions.

“Afghan women have not stopped striving for their rights,” a UN Women statement declared this month. “Their courage is the most powerful form of resistance against this system of exclusion.”