Forbidden to Live: The Main Rights Denied by the Taliban

Taliban rules infiltrate the daily lives, bodies, and minds of women, influencing every gesture and action, making fear a normal and everyday state of mind. Mental distress and suicides are on the rise. Transgressions are punished with physical and psychological violence against both women and the male members of their families. Women’s prisons are filled with women accused of moral crimes.

The following report lists some of the decrees issued by the Taliban to restrict Afghan women in various spheres of life, imposed since August 2021, when they were brought back to power by the United States/NATO.

1. Revoked the right to participate in public and political life. Women are forbidden from engaging in political and public activities.
2. Revoked the right to protest. Dozens of courageous women have been arrested and tortured for organizing demonstrations for their rights.
3. Revoked the right to hold government positions.
4. Prohibition of high school education for girls above sixth grade. This ban has increased violence against girls, including child and forced marriages. Nada Mohammad Nadim, the Taliban’s Minister of Higher Education, declared in a speech, “Girls in schools are obscene and immoral.”
5. Closure of music and art schools. Since the end of August 2021, all centers dealing with music and art education have been closed. Playing music on television and radio channels, as well as at weddings and other celebrations, is banned because the Taliban consider music “forbidden” in Islam. Some musicians have been publicly mistreated, humiliated, and arrested, and their musical instruments destroyed.
6. Prohibition of sports activities. Since September 8, 2021, women have been banned from sports: “Women’s sports are inappropriate and unnecessary activities because players’ faces and bodies cannot be covered, which is not allowed by Sharia.” Therefore, women have no right to physical activity.
7. Sex segregation in public spaces.
8. Creation of the Ministry of “Morality.” The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has become the “Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice.” This ministry is the main body of the Taliban regime that imposes strict Islamic rules, including the dress code, the requirement of a mahram (father, brother, husband, or son) to accompany women when traveling, and the ban on wearing white shoes (because the Taliban flag is white). Women who do not follow these rules can also be arrested.
9. Ban on appearing on television. According to an order issued by the Taliban in November 2021, women are forbidden to appear and work on television; journalists and presenters are ordered to cover their faces completely.
10. Travel restrictions. On December 26, 2021, the Taliban imposed restrictions on women’s movements. Drivers were ordered not to pick up women without a hijab. Women without a mahram cannot travel alone beyond a distance of 72 kilometers. Women are not allowed to sit in the front seat of cars, and any man and woman traveling alone are stopped and questioned to determine if the man is the woman’s mahram.
11. Imposition of the hijab. Women were ordered to wear the hijab in January 2022. The Taliban also created a program called “Hijab Observance,” installing billboards in cities. On May 7, 2022, it was ordered that all women must cover their faces in public places, and if the order is violated, the woman’s male guardian will be punished. Members of the religious police can stop women on the street and force them to buy a hijab in the nearest market before returning home.
12. Driving ban. In May 2022, a decree was issued in Herat province banning women from driving and driving schools from teaching women.
13. Ban on attending public places. On March 27, 2022, women were banned from attending recreational parks, public baths, hair salons, and sports clubs.
14. Prohibition of interaction between female students and male staff. The Taliban imposed restrictions on university staff, preventing them from interacting with female students. Female students were also not allowed to interact with male classmates or attend their graduation ceremonies. Girls were banned from language training courses. In September 2022, the Taliban ordered language training centers to hire female teachers or face closure.
15. Ban on choosing different fields of study. Girls are forbidden from choosing certain fields of study in universities. In the first week of October 2022, when high school graduates took university entrance exams, they were asked not to choose fields like agriculture, veterinary medicine, civil engineering, and mining engineering. Two weeks later, girls were also banned from continuing their master’s studies in fields such as agriculture, commerce, computer science, and engineering.
16. University education ban. On January 28, 2022, all private universities were ordered not to admit female students for the next year until further notice. With the issuance of Decree No. 2271 on December 20, 2022, all public and private universities were closed to girls due to the “presence of female students without a mahram in dormitories.”
17. Banning the right to work. Women are banned from working outside the home, particularly in international and national non-governmental organizations. The Taliban do not allow women to work from home either. Many offices were forced to lay off female employees.
18. Control of reproductive rights. Restrictions on family planning were imposed in Kabul and several other provinces. Doctors, healthcare workers, and pharmacists were ordered not to prescribe or sell birth control and sexual enhancement drugs. If violated, their work permits would be confiscated.
19. Valentine’s Day ban. On February 14, 2023, the Taliban declared Valentine’s Day a blasphemous culture and beat some flower sellers. Shops and restaurants were forced to close on this day.
20. Removal of female images from public places. Images of women in public spaces, including beauty salons, billboards, markets, wedding halls, educational courses, and private schools, private clinics, and public and private hospitals, were forcibly removed or defaced with black paint. The statue of a woman in the courtyard of Kabul University was also defaced, removed, and broken.
21. Removal of female mannequins from shops. Clothing stores cannot display female mannequins. In Herat province, shopkeepers were forced to decapitate mannequins.
22. Prohibition of publishing images of living beings. Government newspapers do not have the right to publish images of living beings because, from the Taliban’s perspective, it is forbidden in Islam to print images of humans and animals.
23. Restriction on providing government services. Government offices can only provide services to women with hijab and mahram twice a week, while on other days, women are prohibited from entering any government office.