The Kabul Tribune (KT) — Five years after the Taliban returned to power, U.N. human rights experts are warning governments against normalizing the group’s rule, saying its policies have systematically restricted the rights of women and girls and entrenched repression across Afghan society.
The experts said in a statement marking five years of
Taliban rule that a generation of Afghan girls has been denied secondary
education, while young women have lost access to universities and employment.
They also said child and forced marriages remain widespread and that
restrictions on women’s movement, health care, justice and participation in
public life have deepened.
“Five years is a short period in the life of a country but a
very long one in the life of a child,” the experts said.
Afghanistan remains the only country where girls are barred
from secondary education and women are excluded from universities. The experts
said the Taliban’s policies amount to systematic gender discrimination and
persecution and described the system as “gender apartheid.”
The experts urged governments not to treat Taliban rule as
an established political reality in the hope that engagement will encourage
moderation.
“Normalising a regime that systematically persecutes more
than half of its population does not promote change; it legitimises
oppression,” they said.
The statement also criticized countries for inviting Taliban
representatives to their capitals or accepting Taliban-appointed diplomats,
arguing that such steps risk amounting to de facto recognition without
meaningful improvements in human rights.
The experts said restrictions imposed by the Taliban have
expanded through a series of laws and decrees, including the 2024 law on the
promotion of virtue and prevention of vice and measures adopted in 2025 and
2026 governing courts, religious preachers and family matters.
They also raised concerns over the continued use of corporal
and capital punishment. The Taliban’s Supreme Court announced the public
flogging of at least 1,110 people in 2025, including at least 170 women,
according to the experts. At least 12 men have been publicly executed since the
Taliban seized power in August 2021, they said.
The crackdown extends beyond women, with the experts saying
religious minorities, LGBT+ people, people with disabilities, journalists,
educators, judges, lawyers, human rights defenders and former government
officials face discrimination, detention and other abuses.
Civic space and independent media have also come under
increasing pressure, according to the experts. Women human rights defenders
face arbitrary detention, harassment and other abuses, while journalists
continue to face detention and censorship.
The statement also highlighted Afghanistan’s worsening
humanitarian crisis. More than 17 million people faced acute food insecurity
during the past winter, including nearly 4 million children suffering acute
malnutrition, according to the experts. About 1 million children were so
severely malnourished that they required hospital treatment.
The experts said the crisis has been worsened by drought,
economic contraction, declining humanitarian funding and the return of more
than 2.5 million Afghans from neighboring countries.
They also raised concerns over cross-border violence. Since
October 2025, they said, fighting along Afghanistan’s borders has killed 499
civilians and injured more than 1,200 others. They called for impartial
investigations into alleged violations of international humanitarian law by all
parties.
The experts urged governments to halt mass deportations and
forced returns to Afghanistan, warning that the country is not safe for people
facing heightened protection risks, including LGBT+ people, human rights
defenders and those perceived to have ties to the former Afghan government.
They called for continued humanitarian assistance, stronger
support for Afghan civil society and women-led organizations, and protection
for refugees and displaced Afghans.
The experts also welcomed the establishment by the U.N.
Human Rights Council in October 2025 of an independent investigative mechanism
for Afghanistan. They said the mechanism must receive sufficient funding, staff
and gender expertise and must meaningfully involve Afghan civil society,
particularly women.
The experts said governments should not move toward
normalizing relations with the Taliban unless there is “demonstrated,
measurable and independently verified progress” on human rights, particularly
the rights of women and girls.
They also called on the Taliban to reverse policies that
violate Afghanistan’s international obligations and respect the rights of all
Afghans.
“Every day without action strengthens the Taliban’s grip,”
the experts said, warning that five years of systematic rights violations
should not be met with international accommodation without conditions.
