The Taliban, which also refers to itself by its state name, the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, is an Afghan militant movement with an ideology comprising elements of Pashtun nationalism and the Deobandi movement of Islamic fundamentalism. It ruled approximately 75% of the country from 1996 to 2001, before it was overthrown by an American invasion. It recaptured Kabul in August 2021 following the departure of coalition forces, after 20 years of Taliban insurgency, and now controls all the country. The Taliban government is not recognized by any country and has been internationally condemned for restricting human rights, including for women to work and have an education.
The treatment of women by the Taliban refers to actions and policies by two distinct Taliban regimes in Afghanistan which are either specific or highly commented upon, mostly due to discrimination, since they first took control in 1996. During their first rule of Afghanistan, the Taliban were notorious internationally for their misogyny and violence against women. In 1996, women were mandated to wear the burqa at all times in public. In a systematic segregation sometimes referred to as gender apartheid, women were not allowed to work, nor were they allowed to be educated after the age of eight. Women seeking an education were forced to attend underground schools, where they and their teachers risked execution if caught. They were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. They faced public flogging and execution for violations of the Taliban's laws.
The history of the Jews in Afghanistan goes back at least 2,500 years. Ancient Iranian tradition suggests that Jews settled in Balkh, an erstwhile Zoroastrian and Buddhist stronghold, shortly after the collapse of the Kingdom of Judah in 587 BCE. In more recent times, the community has been reduced to complete extinction due to emigration, primarily to Israel. At the time of the large-scale 2021 Taliban offensive, only two Jews were still residing in the country: Zablon Simintov and his distant cousin Tova Moradi. When the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan was re-established by the Taliban in August 2021, both Simintov and Moradi made aliyah on 7 September 2021 and 29 October 2021, respectively, leaving Afghanistan completely empty of Jews. Today, the overwhelming majority of the Afghan Jewish community resides in Israel, with a small group of a few hundred living in the United States and the United Kingdom.
Parliamentary elections were held in Afghanistan alongside provincial elections on 18 September 2005. Former warlords and their followers gained the majority of seats in both the lower house and the provincial council. Women won 28% of the seats in the lower house, six more than the 25% guaranteed in the 2004 constitution.
Nadia Anjuman was a poet from Afghanistan.
Lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan face severe challenges not experienced by non-LGBT residents. Afghan members of the LGBT community are forced to keep their gender identity and sexual orientation secret, in fear of violence and the death penalty. The religious nature of the country has limited any opportunity for public discussion, with any mention of homosexuality and related terms deemed taboo.
The Golden Needle Sewing School was an underground school for women in Herat, Afghanistan, during the First Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Because women were not allowed to be educated under the strict interpretation of Islamic law introduced by the Taliban, women writers belonging to the Herat Literary Circle set up a group called the Sewing Circles of Herat, which founded the Golden Needle Sewing School in or around 1996.
Education in Afghanistan includes K–12 and higher education, which is under the Ministry of Education and Ministry of Higher Education. In 2021, there were nearly 10 million students and 220,000 teachers in Afghanistan. The nation still requires more schools and teachers. Soon after the Taliban take took the country in August 2021, they banned girls from secondary education. Some provinces still allow secondary education for girls despite the ban. In December 2022, the Taliban government also prohibited university education for females in Afghanistan, sparking protests and international condemnation. In December 2023, investigations were being held by the United Nations into the claim that Afghan girls of all ages were allowed to study at religious schools.
Sima Samar is a Hazara woman and human rights advocate, activist and medical doctor within national and international forums, who served as Minister of Women's Affairs of Afghanistan from December 2001 to 2003. She is the former Chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) and, from 2005 to 2009, United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Sudan. In 2012, she was awarded the Right Livelihood Award for "her longstanding and courageous dedication to human rights, especially the rights of women, in one of the most complex and dangerous regions in the world."
A Thousand Splendid Suns is a 2007 novel by Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini, following the huge success of his bestselling 2003 debut The Kite Runner. Mariam, an illegitimate teenager from Herat, is forced to marry a shoemaker from Kabul after a family tragedy. Laila, born a generation later, lives a relatively privileged life, but her life intersects with Mariam's when a similar tragedy forces her to accept a marriage proposal from Mariam's husband.
Sex segregation refers to the physical and spatial separation of humans by sex in public or private places. In public places, women are forced to wear the burqa at all times, because, according to one Taliban spokesman, "the face of a woman is a source of corruption" for men not related to them (Non-Mahram).
Suhaila Siddiq, often referred to as 'General Suhaila', was an Afghan politician. She served as the Minister of Public Health from December 2001 to 2004. Prior to that, she worked as the Surgeon General in the military of Afghanistan. As a government minister, she was given the title Honorable before her name. Siddiq was one of the few female government leaders in Afghanistan, and is the only woman in the history of Afghanistan to have held the title of lieutenant general. General Seddiq had worked for the government of Afghanistan since the reign of Mohammed Zahir Shah, and was additionally a paratrooper of the Afghan Commando Forces.
Women's rights in Afghanistan have oscillated back and forth depending on the time period as well as the regime in power. After King Amanullah Khan's attempts to modernize the country in the 1920s, women officially gained equality under the 1964 Constitution. However, these rights were taken away in the 1990s through different temporary rulers such as the mujahideen and the Taliban during the Afghan civil war. During the first Taliban regime (1996–2001), women had very little to no freedom, specifically in terms of civil liberties. When the Taliban was overthrown by the United States following the September 11 attacks, women's rights gradually improved under the presidential Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. Women were de jure equal to men under the 2004 Constitution.
Corruption in Afghanistan is a widespread and growing problem in Afghan society. Transparency International's 2023 Corruption Perceptions Index ranks the country in 162nd place out of 180 countries. The 180 countries of the Index are scored on a scale from 0 to 100 according to the perceived corruption in the public sector, and then ranked by their score. Afghanistan's 2023 ranking is based on a score of 20. For comparison with worldwide scores, the best score was 90, the average score was 43, and the worst score was 11. For comparison with regional scores, the highest score among the countries of the Asia Pacific region was 85, the average score was 45 and the lowest score was 17. In this region, only North Korea had a lower score than Afghanistan. The Taliban significantly tackled corruption upon taking power in 2021; Afghanistan was ranked in 150th place in the 2022 Corruption Perceptions Index, following a ranking of 174th in 2021.
The 1995 attack on the Pakistan Embassy in Kabul occurred on 6 September 1995 when up to 5,000 protestors attacked and sacked the embassy of Pakistan in Kabul, Afghanistan, after the Taliban militia had captured Herat from the internationally recognised Islamic State of Afghanistan. One person was killed and twenty six others, including the Pakistani ambassador, were injured. The attack occurred due to the Afghan peoples belief that Pakistan had helped the Taliban to take the city.
Roya Sadat is an Afghan film producer and director. She was the first woman director in the history of Afghan cinema in the post-Taliban era, and ventured into making feature films and documentaries on the theme of injustice and restrictions imposed on women. Following the fall of the Taliban regime in the country, she made her debut feature film Three Dots. For this film she received six of nine awards which included as best director and best film. In 2003,A Letter to the President her most famous film that received many international awards, she and her sister Alka Sadat established the Roya Film House and under this banner produced more than 30 documentaries and feature films and TV series. She is now involved to direct the opera of A Thousand Splendid Suns for the Seattle Opera and she is during pre production of her 2nd feature film Forgotten History.
Alka Sadat (Persian: الکا سادات, is an Afghan documentary and feature film producer, director and cameraman. She became famous with her first 25-minute film Half Value Life, which highlights social injustice and crime; the film won several awards. She is the younger sister of Roya Sadat, the first Afghan woman film producer and director. The two sisters have collaborated in many film productions from 2004 and were instrumental in establishing the Roya Film House. For her first film she received the Afghan Peace Prize and since then has made many documentaries for which she has won many international awards as a producer, cameraman, and director and also for her work in Television. Both had participated in the "Muslim World: A Short-Film Festival", organized at the Los Angeles Film School, where 32 films from Afghanistan were featured. In 2013, she coordinated in holding the first Afghanistan International Women's Film Festival. Her contribution to film making so far is in 15 documentaries and one short fiction feature film.
Roya Rahmani is an Afghan diplomat who served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to the United States and non-resident ambassador to Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, and the Dominican Republic from December 2018 to July 2021. She is currently the Chair of the international advisory company in development finance — Delphos International LTD. She is also a distinguished fellow at the Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace, and Security, a senior advisor at the Atlantic Council's South Asia Center, and a senior fellow for international security at the New America Foundation. From 2016 to 2018, she served as Afghanistan's first female ambassador to Indonesia, first ever ambassador to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and non-resident ambassador to Singapore.
Zarifa Ghafari is a former female mayor of Maidan Shahr, capital city of the Wardak Province, Afghanistan. Ghafari was one of the few Afghan female mayors, next to the first Afghanistan's mayor, Azra Jafari and Khadija Zahra Ahmadi, and was also the youngest to be appointed, at the age of 24. She is known for her efforts to advance women's rights in Afghanistan. Ghafari was chosen as an International Woman of Courage in 2020 by the US Secretary of State. She has survived three assassination attempts.
Razia Barakzai is an Afghan women's rights activist. She was named one of the BBC's 100 Women in 2021 for her work in leading the first women's protests against the Taliban in August 2021, following their takeover of Afghanistan that same month.
