The Taliban's war on women

Since seizing power in mid-2021, the Taliban have continued to restrict the rights of Afghan women and girls. At the end of 2022, they banned women from attending higher education. By Nele Jensch

  • The picture shows the entrance to a university in the Afghan province of Kandahar, flanked by bushes and rose bushes. A woman clad in a dark blue burqa is walking away from the entrance, holding a stack of papers in her hand.
    Goodbye forever? A woman in a burka leaving a university in Kandahar province. She will not be allowed to return. In a government statement in mid-December 2022, the Islamist Taliban instructed all universities – private as well as public – in Afghanistan to ban women from attending. All female students were barred from universities with immediate effect
  • Numerous women stand in front of the closed gates of a university in Kabul, most of them dressed in black.
    Women to remain outside: the day after the university ban, the Taliban are seen monitoring the entrance of a university in Kabul. The ban is for an indefinite period. But there have also been protests at the universities: male students walked out of an exam in solidarity, professors resigned
  • On the left of the picture, a group of male students apparently taking part in a seminar. On the right, separated by a curtain, are six empty chairs.
    Higher education? Purely a male affair: there have been restrictions before. When the Taliban seized power in August 2021, universities were made to separate entrances and classrooms according to gender. Women were only allowed to be taught by other women or old men. Here you can see how an area for female students in Kandahar University was cordoned off using a curtain
  • Close-up of a group of female graduates. All are wearing a face veil that leaves only the eyes free, and classic graduation hats over the hijab.
    The last of their kind: these female graduates of Benawa University Kandahar were still able to graduate in March with a degree in computer science. Internationally, the renewed restriction of women's rights has been heavily criticised: Human Rights Watch called the university ban a "shameful decision", the UN described it as a violation of human rights
  • A line of young women, all in long black robes and headscarves, stand in front of Kabul University. On the right, an older woman with a green headscarf checks the bag of the young woman at the front.
    "Devastating impact on the future of the country": as recently as October 2022, thousands of girls and women sat university entrance tests, like this one outside Kabul University. Many of them wanted to study teaching subjects or medicine. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said that the university ban "not only violates women's equal rights, but will have devastating effects"
  • A group of girls photographed from behind are walking down a street. All are wearing dark clothes and either black or white headscarves.
    Scant educational opportunities for girls: the ban on university attendance is a further restriction on educational opportunities for women and girls. For some time now, teenage girls in most of the country have not been allowed to attend secondary schools from the seventh grade onwards. These girls, who are on their way to school in eastern Afghanistan, are lucky: some provinces away from the Taliban's centres of power ignore the ban
  • The long shot shows the largely empty City Park amusement park in Kabul. A Ferris wheel can be seen in the background and a green chain carousel on the right.
    Land of invisible women: girls and women are largely excluded from public life. For some months now, they have not been allowed to visit gyms and parks in Kabul. This amusement park in the capital is also off-limits to female visitors. The Taliban justified the ban by saying that regulations on the separation of the sexes were not being observed and that women were not wearing the prescribed headcoverings
  • In the foreground of the picture are purple saffron flowers. In the background walks a row of women carrying red baskets in their hands. All the women are wearing a pale blue uniform, red headscarves and mouthguards.
    Dystopia becomes reality: women collect saffron flowers in Herat province. They are allowed to do this work, unlike most other professions. Since coming to power, the Taliban have enacted numerous regulations that massively restrict the lives of women and girls: for example, they are forbidden to travel without a male companion, and outside their homes they must wear the hijab or burka
  • A group of women hold up banners on a busy Kabul street. On the right of the picture are two men who seem to be watching the protest suspiciously.
    "The world should be ashamed ": Many Afghan women refuse to accept the abolition of their rights. Here women are seen demonstrating in Kabul in November 2022. "The world should be ashamed of the terrible situation of Afghan women", reads one placard. Public protest requires a lot of courage – demonstrators risk beatings and imprisonment. Women's rights activists are persecuted in Afghanistan