News
- Pakistan declares war on Afghanistan after Taliban border attacksPakistan’s Defense Ministry said on Friday that the country now considers itself in an “open war” with Afghanistan after the two countries carried out cross-border strikes Thursday night. Pakistan launched overnight airstrikes on targets in Kabul, Kandahar and Paktika hours after Afghan Taliban forces attacked Pakistani military posts along the border.… Read more »
- UN report details systemic restriction of access to healthcare for Afghan womenUN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, on Friday released a report detailing systemic restriction of access to the healthcare system for Afghan women. Bennet found that the Taliban imposed gender-oppressive policies, including limits on their rights to access education, work, and freedom of… Read more »
- UN member states must protect the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, HRW saysUN member states should do more to protect the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in an oral statement on Thursday at the 61st Session of the UN Human Rights Council. These calls for urgent action come amidst a recent decree enacted by Taliban… Read more »
- UN experts urge states to recognize gender apartheid as crime against humanityUN experts on Monday called on member states to include gender apartheid in the drafting of the treaty on the Prevention and Punishment of Crimes Against Humanity. The experts particularly referred to the situation in Afghanistan, urging states to ensure meaningful women’s participation in the drafting process. The Working Group… Read more »
- The Hague dispatch: international tribunal finds Taliban’s treatment of women amounts to crimes against humanityThis dispatch was co-authored by Divyabharthi Baradhan (JURIST Staff, Malaysia) and Sarisha Harikrishna (Queen’s University Belfast School of Law, United Kingdom). In a landmark ruling, the Permanent People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan (the Tribunal) on December 11 in the Hague, Netherlands, found that the Taliban de facto authorities have… Read more »
- Trump expands travel ban to 20 new countriesUS President Donald Trump issued a presidential proclamation on Tuesday expanding his existing travel ban by 20 additional countries. The ban restricts the entry of nationals from certain designated countries while imposing partial restrictions on others. The proclamation fully prevents nationals from five new countries from entering the US: Burkina… Read more »
- Amnesty International calls on world leaders to halt forced returns of refugees to AfghanistanAmnesty International called on world leaders Tuesday to immediately end the forced returns of refugees and asylum seekers to Afghanistan, citing serious human rights concerns. The statement urged world leaders to abide by their obligations under international human rights law. The organization noted that millions of Afghan refugees have been… Read more »
- UN expert urges Taliban to reverse ban on women staff entering UN premisesA UN expert on Sunday called for the reversal of the ban on women staff entering UN premises in Afghanistan, condemning the Taliban measures as a violation of UN principles of equality and human rights. According to Susan Ferguson, the UN Women Special Representative in Afghanistan, the ban on Afghan… Read more »
- Australia announces sanctions on senior officials of Afghanistan’s Taliban governmentThe Australian government on Saturday announced that it had imposed financial sanctions and travel bans on four senior officials of Afghanistan’s Taliban-run government, in an effort to curtail the regime’s humanitarian violations against women and girls in the country. In early December 2025, Australia unveiled the autonomous sanctions framework in… Read more »
- Rights group urges Afghanistan authorities to end media censorshipHuman Rights Watch (HRW) warned on Thursday that the Taliban have severely undermined media freedom in Afghanistan by closing major news outlets and subjecting remaining ones to surveillance and censorship. The group called on authorities to cease mistreatment of journalists and remove discriminatory restrictions imposed on women reporters. HRW decried Taliban… Read more »
Commentary
- The Lionesses of Afghanistan Are Still FightingThere are moments in everyone’s life when it feels as though everything has come to an end—overwhelmed by pressure, stress, and problems. As a woman living in Afghanistan under the systematic violence of the Taliban, I have experienced this deeply. I remember the day my younger sister walked toward school… Read more »
- Why ‘Gender Persecution’ Doesn’t Capture What’s Happening to Afghan WomenIn recent years, several countries—including Croatia, Malta, and others—have recognized femicide as a distinct crime. The Italian government and parliament also took this step, acknowledging that killing a woman solely because of her gender is not just homicide, but a crime rooted in gender-based violence. These legislative shifts are historic… Read more »
- Threads of Resistance: How Afghan Women Are Turning Online Shops Into Lifelines Under Taliban RuleIt was a late September afternoon when I spotted a pair of beautiful earrings on Instagram. Curious, I followed the account’s links to an online shop. Alongside the other items, they offered curated gift packages. When I messaged them, I learned the owner was a young woman. The shop owner,… Read more »
- Between Deportation and the Taliban: Afghan Women’s Impossible Choice“Left out here and driven away from there” — this old Dari proverb describes a person who has been rejected from both sides, meaning they can neither stay in the first place nor be accepted in the second. For 20-year-old Yasna, a young Afghan woman, and hundreds of thousands of… Read more »
- The Durand-Deobandi Nexus: How the Taliban Threatens Pakistan’s SovereigntyPakistan, established in 1947 as a homeland for South Asia’s Muslims, occupies a pivotal position in regional geopolitics, navigating complex relationships with neighboring Afghanistan and global powers. While Pakistan seeks strategic autonomy through cooperative alliances, its most pressing challenge emerges from the Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a nation it regards as a… Read more »
- The Internet Is Our Only Light Under Taliban RuleIs this the last time you’ll hear from me? It could be, as the Taliban’s crackdown on all of our rights has extended to internet technology. A ban on fiber optic internet has begun its slow trickle from province to province, and it could be only a matter of time… Read more »
- How the Taliban’s Repression of Women Deepens Afghanistan’s Earthquake TragedyThe earth shook beneath Afghanistan once again, and as rescue workers pulled bodies from the rubble, one devastating truth became clear: half our population remains invisible even in our darkest hour. As aftershocks continue to rattle the earthquake-stricken regions, the images and videos emerging from the disaster zone tell a… Read more »
- ‘We Saw Women Die at Home’: Taliban’s Midwife Ban Threatens Rural Afghan Healthcare“I never wanted to study midwifery,” a 20-year-old woman from Afghanistan’s eastern province of Nangarhar told me. “But after the university ban, I couldn’t continue to study computer science – the major which was my dream and what I had worked so hard for.” December 20 marked the second anniversary… Read more »
- The Paradox of Unenforced Taliban SanctionsAs the global community marked International Human Rights Day earlier this month, millions of Afghan women and girls remained trapped in their homes, cast out of their schools, work and public life by repressive Taliban policy. Last year, in response to these then-already-ongoing human rights violations, the US government announced… Read more »
- ICC arrest warrants offer glimmer of hope, but justice remains elusive for Afghanistan’s many war victimsOn Monday at the opening of the twenty-third session of the Assembly of State Parties in The Hague, Prosecutor Khan announced that the Court would seek to issue arrest warrants for figures responsible for crimes against humanity in Afghanistan saying: “In relation to Afghanistan […] we will be announcing applications… Read more »
