Since the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan in 2021, more than 80 decrees have been issued against women and girls. The country’s female population of 20 million now faces severe restrictions in all aspects of their lives; from the initial ban on education for girls after 12 years of age to the latest outrage, confirmed in August by the Taliban’s leader Mullah Hibatullah, that prohibits women from speaking in public.
So restrictive is life for Afghan women that they are now forbidden to work in government offices, receive any education after the age of 12, go to parks, or travel without a male companion. Beauty salons have been closed, and women and girls are forbidden even from singing. Recently, the Taliban’s Minister for the Promotion of Virtue went so far as to announce that women should not say Allahu Akbar aloud during prayer.
‘In Kabul, even a cat has more freedom than a woman,’ said actor and campaigner Meryl Streep during a meeting at the UN General Assembly in September. The denial of these fundamental rights and freedoms is brutally enforced. Yet women in Afghanistan are staging small acts of resistance, and Afghan women abroad are keeping the world’s attention on the Taliban’s misogyny by arguing that it represents ‘gender apartheid.’
Two shepherding sisters Masooma, aged eight, and Zeeba, nine, play ‘five stones’ in Keda village, Badakhshan, while herding sheep. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
Shrinking freedoms
Raihana, 30, who works for an international non-profit organization in Kabul, describes the mental toll that this daily threat of violence is taking. ‘Last week, my mother was on a public minibus on her way to the dentist when the Taliban forced her to get off because men were also on board,’ she said. ‘She told them she is 50 years old, but they threatened her with a whipping and forced her off.’
Since the latest edict, Raihana’s movements have been further restricted, and she is now forced to work from home, ‘I haven’t been to the office for over a month,’ she said. ‘I can’t bear witnessing this constant disrespect towards women and young girls, and I feel guilty that I can’t do anything to help them.’
An aid worker for an international NGO arrives at work in Zabul, Patkheyl District, accompanied by her husband. The NGO’s mobile clinic delivers free health services to women, men and children in remote areas, but female staff must travel with a male chaperone. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
Photojournalist Kiana Hayeri and researcher Mélissa Cornet encountered similar despair when they travelled across Afghanistan earlier this year to capture the lives of women and girls under Taliban rule. Photos from their project, ‘No Woman’s Land’, accompany this article. ‘Many young women still hold a desire to pursue education, but some now question the purpose, wondering if it is worth the risk when they feel the odds are against them,’ said Cornet.
Young school girls play in their break at a public school in Zibak. Despite the Taliban’s promises, high schools for girls have not re-opened, and those over 12 are still barred from education. Some homes and mosques continue to teach girls in secret, but at a high risk. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
Delegating enforcement
Since the new law came into force in August, some women in Afghanistan say ordinary members of the Taliban, not just its uniformed officials, now feel emboldened to interfere in their lives. Sakina, 26, said she used to only fear uniformed Taliban officials. ‘While I was out wedding shopping with my fiancé, a few armed Taliban fighters entered the shop,’ said Sakina. ‘Without even asking about our relationship, they struck my fiancé and demanded to know why he was sitting next to a woman.’
Halima, 28, tattoos the face of a woman on to the arm Mustafa in the living room of her house. After the decree that shut down women’s beauty salons, many women started working from home. The widow and mother of three describes how her sense of security has been shattered since the Taliban returned to power. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
The Taliban have also increased pressure on men in families to enforce restrictive rules against women. According to the Taliban’s mandatory hijab order, the male head of the household is responsible for ensuring the woman’s compliance with dress codes. Should a female family member fail to follow these rules, her male guardian may be summoned to the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice and even to a Taliban court, where he could face up to three days’ imprisonment.
Shooting their project, Hayeri and Cornet noted the increasing role of male family members in enforcing restrictions. ‘The Taliban enforce their rules strategically,’ Cornet said. ‘They have reactivated parts of Afghan society that are inherently patriarchal. Much of the control over women is now handed to communities, fathers and husbands.’
In certain regions, these restrictions for women were all too familiar before the Taliban’s return to power. ‘For a percentage of the population their lives didn’t really change – those who lived in rural Kandahar, Helmand or the eastern part of Afghanistan already had restrictions imposed on them,’ Cornet said.
Teenage girls celebrate a friend’s birthday in Kabul. The Taliban have forbidden music and dance but women continue to celebrate in the privacy of their homes. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
Resistance in the darkness
As the nature of the Taliban’s control varies from region to region, so does the picture of resistance and resilience. Since the latest decree, which was designed to suppress women’s voices, the number of public protests by women has declined significantly.
Defying Taliban laws carries costs, with many people facing arrest, torture and even sexual assault. In July 2024, Rukhshana Media and the Guardian reported the gang rape of a female protester in prison by armed Taliban men. More cases like this are expected to be uncovered. Yet sparks of defiance are visible. ‘Street protests are like suicide’ said one woman. ‘When Taliban members see a group of women gathered during a protest, they either chase, attack or arrest them. We are trying to adopt different methods of resistance,’ she said.
In western Kabul, some women have started graffitiing slogans on the walls of the city. Here a protestor writes ‘Free Afghan women. 15 of August is the darkest day in Afghanistan history. Recognize gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Don’t recognize the Taliban.’ Video: Rukhshana Media
She and many women in Kabul and other cities under less stringent Taliban control are writing slogans on walls calling for the end of gender apartheid and asserting their right to ‘food, work and freedom’. Some are even recording their voices to share on social media, in defiance of the latest law to silence them.
The Taliban’s repression of Afghanistan’s women and their exclusion from much of the job market is inflicting economic costs on the country. In the past year, the employment rate for women of working age halved to 6 per cent. According to the United Nations Development Programme the annual economic cost of banning women from employment in Afghanistan is estimated at $1 billion – 5 per cent of GDP. For a country in which 15.8 million people don’t have enough food, the exclusion of women from work is making a desperate economic situation worse.
A ripped poster on a wall in Faizabad shows how women are supposed to cover their faces, either with a with a burqa, or chadari, a full face covering, or with a niqab, allowing only the eyes to be uncovered. Photo: © Kiana Hayeri for Fondation Carmignac.
As economic opportunities for Afghan women diminish further, the demand for the international community to recognize gender apartheid in Afghanistan as a crime against humanity has become a rallying call for women across the country. In September, more than 130 Afghan women attended the Afghan Women’s Summit in Albania, risking the Taliban’s murderous retribution.
There they urged the UN to recognize gender apartheid as a crime under international law. Various human rights groups, as well as Malala Yousafzai, the youngest Nobel peace laureate, are campaigning to have gender apartheid designated a crime against humanity (the issue is under consideration at the UN). Afghan women’s rights activists say that international condemnation of the Taliban is having little effect, but that incorporating gender apartheid into international law would provide an important legal framework to hold them to account.
‘If the international community does nothing else to secure the rights of Afghan women, it should at least recognize this gender apartheid in Afghanistan’ said the female graffiti writer.
