More than half of Afghan women (52 percent) leave the house twice a month or less because of Taliban-imposed restrictions, according to a survey conducted by the United Nations.
UN Women also reported that 90 percent of women said they needed a male family member’s permission before leaving home.
Seventy-five percent said they felt unsafe leaving home without a male guardian.
“Half a decade after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” UN Women said in an Aug. 12 statement.
The agency said that in those five years, Taliban authorities “have issued more than 100 decrees targeting women and girls, institutionalizing discrimination and stripping them of their fundamental rights.”
They said that in the past year, women’s exclusion from schools, public life, and justice systems has intensified.
UN Women said that Afghan women’s confinement to the home is having profound consequences on their mental health, as well as limiting their access to physical activity and community.
“With each new restriction closing off avenues for education, work, mobility, and connection, women’s ability to cope with ongoing pressures is increasingly strained,” the report said, noting that seven in 10 Afghan women describe their mental health as bad or very bad. Some 59 percent report their mental health worsening in the past six months, alone.
UN Women said its report was based on a door-to-door survey of 2,190 people conducted in February to March 2025 and telephone surveys of 2,811 people conducted in April to May 2026.
Rights of Women
The Taliban says they respect the rights of women, in accordance with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.
Saif-ul-Islam Khyber, spokesman for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces many of the Taliban government’s rules on women, said reports of women not feeling safe to leave their homes were false.
“This is the first time in approximately 50 years that all citizens of Afghanistan feel that they are living in safety and security,” Khyber said.
He said that women have access to all their rights, and that the situation of women’s rights in Afghanistan was moving in a “positive direction.”
The United States designates the Taliban as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist entity.
2.4 Million Afghan Girls Barred From School
Earlier this week, a report from the U.N. Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) estimates that 2.4 million Afghan girls have been barred from secondary education since the Taliban regained control of the country five years ago.
“Afghanistan is the only country in the world to formally prohibit access to education for girls and women beyond the primary level,” UNESCO said in an Aug. 11 statement.
“These restrictions are reversing two decades of progress in expanding access to education: while access to schooling for girls was severely limited in 2001, by 2021 nearly one million girls were enrolled in secondary education.”
UNESCO said that barring women and girls from post-primary education and restricting their employment not only denies them the ability to support their families in a country where nearly half of its people live below the poverty line, but has “harmful consequences on the wellbeing, mental and physical health of girls and women, while increasing the risks of early marriage.”
When the Taliban returned to power in 2021, they said that women would still be allowed to go to school and attend university.
However, secondary schools for girls were closed in March 2022. This was followed by a ban on women studying in universities in December that year.
The Taliban described both bans as temporary, but they have remained in place.
Reuters contributed to this report.
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