Photo via Crisis Group
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Three years after the United States pulled its troops out of Afghanistan, the Taliban’s takeover has been anything but peaceful. In the years since the terrorist group has seized control of the government, Afghanistan has seen a complete transformation in nearly every aspect: the landscape, the climate, and the rights of their citizens have all completely changed — and not for the better.
Recent satellite footage of Afghanistan reveals the Taliban’s latest aspect of their “regeneration” regime, involving the demolition of entire districts to make room for new settlements. Satellite analysis indicates that 1.56 sq km (385 acres) of the city were flattened within the capital city of Kabul between August 2021 and August 2024.
The Afghan Witness Project has recently claimed they have reason to believe that these land clearances are linked to ethnicity and ethnic cleansing. These demolitions affected the poorest districts, inhabited by minority communities such as the Tajiks and Hazaras. Of the land cleared, 44% was residential, with over 150,000 square meters belonging to the Hazara community, Afghanistan’s largest minority ethnic group.
Witnesses to the demolition recall Taliban officials ordering the demolition of homes while residents were still inside, leading to thousands of deaths and injuries. Women, children, and the elderly were significantly affected, as pleas to halt the demolition were ignored. Anyone who attempted to record the demolitions was reportedly beaten.
In an attempt to implement further control, the rights of women in Afghanistan have entirely disappeared. Three years after the Taliban’s takeover, Afghan women have suffered nothing but cruelty, enduring complete control from overzealous religious extremists. Indeed, over 105 decrees, edicts, and orders controlling women’s lives have been put into place over the past three years. These laws are enforced violently and arbitrarily, including through detention, sexual abuse, torture, and cruel, inhuman, or other degrading treatments and punishments, such as stoning and whipping.
Even worse, women in Afghanistan are left speechless—literally—as the Taliban rules that women are no longer allowed to speak to one another in public, nor are they allowed to hear each other in passing. Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women.
“Even when an adult female prays, and another female passes by, she must not pray loudly enough for them to hear,” Hanafi says.
This newest decree is just the latest restriction on women’s rights in Afghanistan. Women are banned from entering government buildings, leaving their houses, seeing male doctors, or praying without a man present, and are no longer allowed to receive an education past primary school.
In a recent interview, Malala Yousafzai, who survived a gunshot to the head at the hands of the Taliban, expressed her disappointment in the latest news regarding women’s rights. “I never imagined that women’s rights would be compromised so easily,” Malala tells BBC Asian Network. “Women lost everything.”
Without access to any of these human rights, Afghan women are in danger. The regression of their social standing has impacted not only current generations, but also future ones. Women and young girls, especially those belonging to any of the aforementioned minority groups in Afghanistan, are at risk of extreme femicide. Cutting off access to education, healthcare, and autonomy of any kind are all stepping stones in some larger, nefarious scheme that enforces brutality and gender-based violence.
Evidently, this is about more than a few sexist comments. It does not only exist within the confines of religion, and it is not some kind of dystopian novel come to life. This is not “just like The Handmaid’s Tale.” It is not some kind of fantasy where we can turn off the television or close the book, and all the existing problems disappear forever. This is real life, and real people are in danger.
How can the world provide safety to these women without starting another war? Right now, the world has its heads turned, thinking that because the United States admitted its defeat in the longest war in American history, there is nothing that can be done—and nothing will be done. And who’s to say that the Taliban’s actions will not inspire those in other countries to do the same? What will the world say when another country inevitably takes a page out of the Taliban’s book? Are they to be left to figure it out on their own for diplomacy, or is it undiplomatic to ignore all of the women who need help? Where does the line exist?
Nevertheless, it has never been more clear that the United Nations, or any other human rights organization, has failed the women of Afghanistan.
