Since the Taliban returned to power almost four years ago, few women have been able to keep their jobs amid an increasing array of restrictions on women’s freedoms. Ameena is one of them.
Now, Ameena, and the few others like her who haven’t lost their careers to the Taliban’s restrictive measures, fear another blow: that ongoing global conflicts such as those in Ukraine and the Middle East, and shifting international priorities -- the United States and many European countries are cutting aid as foreign policies shift -- are exacerbating the dire situation for women's rights in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
“The Taliban is getting away with their crackdown on us because it knows that Afghanistan is not a priority for the international community anymore,” Ameena said.
Ameena, whose name has been changed over security concerns, says her work at a private media outlet has been vital for her “survival both financially and mentally.”
Her salary of around 12,000 Afghanis ($170) a month doesn’t just help put food on the table for her parents and family.
“Being able to work is much more than just money to me: it gives meaning to my life -- I feel that I’m doing something with my life. I would literally lose my mind if I was confined to the four walls of my home like most women in my country today,” Ameena, 25, told RFE/RL.
But Ameena fears that the “rope is tightening further” around women’s lives in Afghanistan, especially outside of Kabul, as the Taliban-led government continues to roll back the rights they enjoyed during the two decades of the Western-backed government before it collapsed in August 2021.
Despite making promises to form an inclusive government, adhere to basic human rights norms, and prevent Afghan territory from becoming a safe haven for transnational extremist groups, the Taliban have failed to deliver.
The hard-line Islamist regime has systematically denied Afghan women and girls access to education, employment, and freedom of movement, and prevents them from holding prominent roles in government or society.
The UN has condemned the Taliban's treatment of Afghan women as "gender apartheid," highlighting their systematic erasure from public life and severe punishments for resistance.
In a new report last month, the United Nations office in Afghanistan (UNAMA) documented ongoing, widespread discrimination against women as the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice implements strict morality laws ratified by Supreme Spiritual Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada in 2024.
ICC Arrest Warrants
The Taliban’s morality laws bar women from speaking or showing their faces in public, going to amusement parks, and travelling or eating out without a male guardian, among other restrictions.
Women’s gyms and beauty salons have been closed across the country.
Earlier this year, the International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants for Akhunzada and the chief justice of the Taliban’s Supreme Court, Abdul Hakim Haqqani, accusing them of persecuting females.
The Taliban administration has dismissed the arrest warrants as well as the UN condemnation of its restrictive policies on women’s rights.
While the primary driver of women's rights violations in Afghanistan is the Taliban's repressive policies, global conflicts and shifting international priorities are starting to compound the challenges faced by Afghan women.
Keeping Spotlight On Women’s Rights
The recent decision by the Trump administration to make deep cuts to its aid program, USAID, is one such shift.
According to the advocacy group OneAid, the move will cost Afghanistan more than $500 million in aid that won't reach the country.
“It feels like Afghanistan and its issues, including its women’s rights are forgotten by the West,” says Rahila Yousofi, an independent Afghan journalist, who recently left Kabul for neighboring Pakistan.
“Afghanistan is being pushed further aside from the radar by new conflicts, like Iran and Gaza. Western countries also focus more on their own domestic matters, obviously,” Yousofi told RFE/RL in a phone interview.
With the world’s attention wandering, many Afghan women’s rights activists are doubling down in an effort to keep their cause in the international spotlight.
Fawzia Koofi, a former lawmaker and the founder of the Women for Afghanistan group, is one of those activists working with United Nations, the International Court of Justice, International Criminal Court, and human rights groups to document what they call the “ongoing gross violations” of women’s rights in Afghanistan.
Koofi warns Western governments not to abandon Afghanistan and its women, saying that “doing so would be a mistake they might regret.”
'Leverage' Over The Taliban
Despite the crippling poverty that has overwhelmed Afghanistan, the Taliban administration has rejected Western demands to attach conditions to receiving aid such as upholding women’s and ethnic minorities rights.
Instead, the hard-line government in Kabul has turned to countries such as China, Russia, and Central Asian states that pay less attention to Afghanistan’s human rights records. They have established trade, economic, and political ties with the Taliban-led government, which has not been officially recognized by any country in the world.
“The West still has great leverage over the Taliban,” says Yousofi. “The Taliban is desperate to get international recognition. The West should not give the Taliban government legitimacy if it continues to ignore the grievances of the people of Afghanistan.”
