- The Taliban have issued a new directive ordering teaching hospitals across Afghanistan to fully segregate male and female medical staff in operating rooms, a move that health professionals warn will further weaken an already strained healthcare system. The Taliban enforced the same policy when they were in power in the late 1990s until they were […]
- In January, the Taliban released a new law authorizing executions across eleven categories of people. Article 16 gives the Taliban the ability for “discretionary execution” for Taliban-defined crimes such as “armed opposition to the Taliban, promoting beliefs contrary to Islam, sorcery and repeat criminal acts.” The provision’s broad and vague language has sparked serious concerns […]
- The Taliban has quietly enacted a sweeping new penal code that fundamentally reshapes Afghanistan’s legal system, formalizing violence, criminalizing dissent, legalizing slavery, and stripping women of legal personhood under the guise of religious law. On January 7, Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada signed off on the “Penal Principles of Taliban Courts,” a document spanning 119 articles […]
- Last Wednesday in Washington, D.C., lawmakers convened a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing to examine the Biden administration’s Afghan parole program. While national security concerns dominated the discussion, the hearing also made clear that Afghans are among the most thoroughly vetted populations entering the United States. It also underscored the growing uncertainty facing tens of thousands […]
- On November 5, 2025, in Herat, Afghanistan, the Taliban imposed a new edict requiring women to wear a burqa before entering public hospitals. Women patients, visitors, and even medical staff must now wear a burqa to be allowed inside any public healthcare facility. A burqa is a full-body covering that leaves only a small mesh […]
- While still reeling from the August earthquakes in eastern Afghanistan, the country was hit by another 6.3 magnitude quake in the north on November 3, 2025. The disaster left at least 27 people dead and nearly 1,000 injured across Samangan and Balkh provinces. Afghanistan’s latest earthquake is not only a natural disaster, but a reminder […]
- Maternal mortality in Afghanistan has reached a dire point, a result of a web of interconnected crises. The return of the Taliban and subsequent international aid cuts have created a healthcare collapse where women are the primary victims. Each factor reinforces the other, leaving Afghan women without care and providers. Countless Afghan women and children […]
- In a recent report, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan delivered his most urgent warning yet, telling the United Nations’ General Assembly that Afghanistan is facing “the most extreme and systematic assault on gender equality in the world today.” In his latest report, Richard Bennett cautioned governments against normalizing […]
- On October 16, 2025, Taliban publicly executed, Ismail, another Afghan man, convicted of murder, before thousands of spectators at a sports stadium in Badghis province, Afghanistan. In Herat province, a video from August this year captured Taliban fighters kicking the corpse of Mohammad Daud, accused of assassinating a commander, as crowds filmed the desecration, a […]
- In late September, Afghanistan was plunged into a digital darkness. The Taliban government abruptly imposed a nationwide internet shutdown, cutting off millions of Afghans from communication, information, and, for many Afghan women, their final link to education and the outside world. While internet access has been partially restored in Afghanistan, reports from inside the country […]
