Afghanistan’s Deepening Rights Crisis: Repression, Education Ban, and Forced Returns

Since the Taliban re‑established control in 2021, the climate of fear has grown. The authorities’ morality police regularly detain people for dress‑code breaches, beard length or listening to music, while media outlets face temporary shutdowns and journalists are arrested. Targeted persecution also continues against former combatants and minority sects such as Shi’a and Ismaili communities. The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded at least 449 cases of corporal punishment in the first half of 2026, underscoring a broader pattern of harsh discipline.

Education for Afghan girls and women has been systematically shut down since the Taliban’s return. More than two million females have been denied secondary and higher‑education opportunities, a situation the UN describes as gender apartheid. Recent decrees tighten control over divorce and separation, effectively making it harder for women to leave a spouse and implicitly encouraging child marriage and violence against women and children. Türk also condemned women’s exclusion from public decision-making. Separately, Taliban restrictions prevent Afghan women, including staff and visitors, from entering UN premises in the country.

At the same time, forced returns are compounding the crisis. UNHCR estimates that more than 400,000 Afghans have been expelled from Iran, Pakistan, Türkiye, Tajikistan and several EU member states, often back to conditions of deep poverty and insufficient food, clean water, health care, schooling and work. About 21.9 million people – about 45 % of the population – now require humanitarian assistance, while international aid flows are described as trickling dry. The UN human-rights chief urged states to reconsider their actions and place the needs of Afghanistan’s suffering population first.