Human Rights Watch (HRW) on Tuesday stated that the Taliban have increased their human rights violations four years after their takeover of Afghanistan. The rights group also warned that the forced returns of Afghans to the country is intensifying the humanitarian crisis.

Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at HRW, said that the four-year mark of Taliban rule is a “grim reminder of the gravity of the Taliban’s abuses.” HRW highlighted that the Taliban have continued to exclude girls from “education beyond the sixth grade and women from universities. Women also face severe restrictions on employment, freedom of movement, and access to public spaces and services.” For example, HRW labeled the Taliban’s “Law on Promoting Virtue and Preventing Vice” as “draconian,” since it seriously restricted women’s autonomy by banning women from speaking and showing their uncovered faces in public.

Notably, the International Criminal Court’s arrest warrants on July 8, 2025, focused on these restrictions. The arrest warrants were issued against the supreme leader of the Taliban, and Abdul Hakim Haqqani, the chief justice of the Taliban, and focused on the crime against humanity of persecution (Article 7(1)(h) of the Rome Statute).

According to HRW, various countries have forcibly returned individuals to Afghanistan. Iran and Pakistan have forced the return of approximately 2 million people to Afghanistan, many of whom lived outside of Afghanistan for decades or their entire lives. Furthermore, the HRW notes that the United States has made many Afghans deportable through the various measures implemented by President Donald Trump’s administration. Importantly, the United Nations (UN) issued a report in July that highlighted that Afghan refugees who were forcibly returned to Afghanistan faced human rights abuses by the Taliban authorities.

On August 15, 2021, the Taliban took over Afghanistan. Since then, the HRW has claimed that the Taliban have suppressed opposition, detained journalists, and increased constraints on women and girls’ human rights.

The Internal Displacement Monitoring Centre (IDMC) has noted that 4.2 million people have been internally displaced in Afghanistan by the end of 2024. HRW argued that the forced returns have added to the millions of people who are internally displaced within Afghanistan, which further limits the provision of humanitarian assistance. The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that 22.9 million people in Afghanistan need humanitarian aid to survive. “The loss of foreign assistance has exacerbated malnutrition, particularly among children,” HRW said.

HRW argued that “UN member countries have for four years failed to take effective action to end the egregious rights violations occurring in Afghanistan.” The rights group takes the view that the international community should positively act to end human rights abuses, alleviate the humanitarian crisis, and should not forcibly return people to Afghanistan.