Afghanistan: Taliban rule has erased women from public life, sparked mental health crisis

This article is published in association with United Nations.

Three years of Taliban rule in Afghanistan has led to the “striking” erasure of women from public life, which is also reflected at the community and household levels, a senior official with the UN agency championing gender equality said on Tuesday. 

Alison Davidian, UN Women Country Representative in Afghanistan, briefed journalists in New York on their latest report addressing the plight of women and girls since the de facto authorities returned to power in August 2021.

She described this period as “three years’ worth of countless decrees, directives, and statements targeting women and girls – stripping them of their fundamental rights and eviscerating their autonomy.”

‘The horrors have not stopped’

Taliban edicts have denied girls from getting an education beyond the sixth grade and banned women from working for non-governmental organization (NGOs).

“Three years ago, the world was watching a takeover that was livestreaming horror after horror,” she said, speaking via videoconference from the Afghan capital, Kabul.

“And three years later, while the world’s attention may have turned elsewhere, the horrors have not stopped for Afghan women and girls, but nor has their conviction to stand against the oppression.” 

A 31-year-old woman sits by the window. She used to be an entrepreneur before the Taliban takeover.

Monitoring other women

The UN Women report details trends based on consultations with thousands of women across Afghanistan – from provincial capitals to rural areas – since the Taliban’s return.

“And the first most striking trend is the erasure of Afghan women from public life,” said Ms. Davidian.

“To date, no woman in Afghanistan is in a leadership position anywhere that has influence politically, either at national or provincial level. When women are engaged in the Taliban’s structures, their roles are largely to monitor compliance of other women with their discriminatory decrees.”

No longer heard, even at home

This political erasure is also mirrored at the social level as a staggering 98 per cent of women surveyed felt they had limited or zero influence over decisions made in their communities.

Furthermore, the percentage of women who feel they have a say in decisions made in their own homes has dropped by nearly 60 per cent over the past year.

“To give some context, three years ago an Afghan women could technically decide to run for President. Now, she may not even be able to decide when to go and buy groceries,” said Ms. Davidian.

“Now, I’m not saying that three years ago it was perfect. It was not perfect. But it wasn’t this.”

When asked about the finding, she responded: “I think when you take away women’s right to education and restrict their rights to work and public life, it affects all rights and affects women’s agency more generally.”

Mental health crisis

The UN Women data also revealed an escalating mental health crisis linked to the loss of rights.  Sixty-eight per cent of women reported having “bad” or “very bad” mental health, and eight per cent said they knew at least one other woman or girl who had attempted suicide.

Ms. Davidian was adamant that the Taliban’s restrictions on women and girls will affect generations to come.

“Our analysis shows that by 2026, the impact of leaving 1.1 million girls out of school, and 100,000 women out of university, correlates to an increase in early childbearing by 45 per cent and an increase in maternal mortality by up to 50 per cent,” she said.

Invest in women

In the face of the deepening women’s rights crisis in Afghanistan, UN Women are calling for continued investment in the country’s women and girls.

“Nothing undermines the Taliban’s vision for society more than empowering the very part of the population that it seeks to oppress,” Ms. Davidian told reporters.

She said investment means allocating long-term sustainable funding to women’s organizations, designing programmes that directly counter their erasure – such as initiatives focused on education, livelihoods and entrepreneurship – and facilitating spaces “where Afghan women can tell us directly on what their priorities are and what their recommendations are.” 

Regarding entrepreneurship, she explained that Afghan women can run businesses, though mainly home-based, in sectors such as carpet weaving, tailoring and food processing.  However, access to markets and financing are key challenges.

In this regard, UN Women are supporting Afghan women entrepreneurs to overcome these hurdles, in addition to helping them with business development skills “so that in the space that they have, they’re able to utilize it as much as possible.”

© UNICEF/Munir Tanwee/Daf recor

An Afghan girl studies at home with the help of her father after being denied the right to carry on studying at school.

‘The world is watching’

Overall, the agency’s report shows that “Afghan women want to represent themselves, but one meeting, one participation option, is not enough,” Ms. Davidian said.

“In every and any form of engagement, we need to be asking how do we meaningfully include Afghan women?  And how do we break the pattern of women’s exclusion?” 

She also looked at the wider picture as “we are at a real inflection point” in the fight for women’s rights globally, and not just in Afghanistan.

“The world is watching what happens to Afghan women and girls,” she said. “In some cases, it watches to condemn, but in others, it watches to emulate the Taliban’s systematic oppression.” 

She insisted that the international community cannot leave Afghan women to fight alone, because “if we do, we have no moral ground to fight for women’s rights anywhere else. Their fate determines the fate of women everywhere.”