Publications

Afghan Women Left in Limbo: Decree 18 and the struggle to end a marriage

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

Early this year, the Islamic Emirate’s Supreme Leader, Hibatullah Akhundzada, issued Decree 18, which codified the grounds on which women can end a marriage. While Afghan men can divorce their wives easily, women must either get their husband’s consent, typically with financial penalties, or a court ruling. Kate Clark and the AAN team have been […]

19 Sep 2026

Beyond the Ban: Older girls finding alternative forms of education

Rachel Reid •

The closure of schools for girls beyond grade six is the most glaring example of the Emirate’s discrimination against women and girls. Without access to secondary and higher education, most teenage girls and young women see little hope for a future beyond family life. But for some, the restrictions are not absolute. Whether through their […]

1 Sep 2026

A Son of Jaghori: Remembering Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, 1930-2026

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

For centuries, a steady stream of Afghan students have gone to the great Shia Islamic seminaries of Iran and Iraq in search of religious learning. Few rose as high as Mohammad Ishaq Fayyaz, who died in June 2026 at the age of 96. AAN’s Rohullah Suroush and Roxanna Shapour trace Fayyaz’s journey from a village […]

5 Aug 2026

A Good Smuggler is Hard to Find: The evolution of Afghan smuggling networks in the Balkans

Jelena Bjelica • Fabrizio Foschini •

In the past decade, Afghans aged 14 to 23 have become the single largest group of migrants in the Western Balkans. More than 2.5 million people – a fifth of them Afghans – are estimated to have crossed through this region since 2015 on their way to Western Europe. Over that time, Afghan migrant-smuggling networks have […]

26 Jul 2026

Returning to Uncertainty: How Afghan returnees from Pakistan are struggling to rebuild their lives

Nur Khan Himmat • Jelena Bjelica •

Some six million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan since September 2023, almost half of them in 2025, making it one of the largest return movements of any nationality in recent decades. 2.26 million people returned from Pakistan, one million in 2025 alone, amid an intensifying deportation campaign launched in September 2023 […]

24 Jun 2026

Nine Months Under the Emirate: One woman’s pregnancy in Kabul

Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour •

Pregnancy is often described as a time of joy, anticipation and preparation, but for many women in Afghanistan, getting through those nine months can feel like an obstacle course. In this instalment of the Daily Hustle, AAN’s Hamid Pakteen speaks to Zarghuna, a 38-year-old mother in Kabul, about her latest pregnancy. With her husband stranded […]

7 Oct 2026

Borrowing from the Future: How an Afghan trader sank deeper into debt

Hamid Pakteen • Roxanna Shapour •

For many small traders, buying goods on credit is part of doing business. It allows them to trade even if they do not have the money to pay for stock up front. However, that also leaves them vulnerable when deals go wrong, creditors demand repayment or the economy takes a downturn. Borrowing more money to […]

1 Oct 2026

The Virtual Girl: One woman’s digital life under the Emirate

Roxanna Shapour •

As opportunities have narrowed for women and girls outside the home – under the Islamic Emirate’s many restrictions – many have turned to the internet to try to replace what they have lost. In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, Roxanna Shapour hears from Sayeda, a young Afghan woman in Kabul who not only studies […]

8 Sep 2026

When You Can’t Afford to Be Sick: From hakims and shrines to the operating table

Roxanna Shapour •

What happens when the medical treatment you need costs more money than you have? For many Afghans, illness comes with an impossible calculation. Paying for healthcare places a heavy burden on households, with patients and their families usually forced to cover costs out of their own pockets. For those faced with medical bills they cannot […]

16 Aug 2026

After the Schools Closed: For some Afghan girls, learning happens on the airwaves

Rohullah Sorush • Roxanna Shapour •

One of the first things the Taliban did after returning to power in August 2021 was to ban girls from going to school beyond grade six. Nearly five years later, the ban remains in place. For many, the classroom they had sat in only days before was suddenly out of reach. In this instalment of The […]

28 Jun 2026

What Affordable Means in Today’s Afghanistan: Choosing what to give up and what to hold on to

Jawed Neshat • Roxanna Shapour •

What happens when a family that once enjoyed a comfortable life can no longer afford the things it once took for granted? This is the situation for many Afghan households still struggling in the wake of the economic collapse of 2021 and 2022 when many lost their jobs and yet prices continue to rise and […]

31 May 2026

The Erosion of One Man’s Rule: How household authority is shifting in rural Pashtun society

Sharif Akram •

For generations, authority within the Afghan family rested with its eldest man, the grandfather or, in his absence, the father or oldest brother. They decided everything from marriage and money to migration and disputes and the rest of the household was bound to obey. That arrangement is loosening. AAN’s Sharif Akram has been looking at […]

14 Sep 2026

Pushed to the Limits: The struggle to survive deepening poverty in Afghanistan

Gulhan Durzai •

Much has been written about the Afghan economy since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate in 2021: the data show a calamitous economic contraction, a fragile recovery where per capita GDP is actually falling, a labour market struggling to provide jobs and livelihoods, women and children taking on home-based work for a pittance, a large number […]

25 Aug 2026

Inside Afghanistan’s Unequal Economic Recovery: How households have fared since 2021

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

Since the crash following the collapse of the Republic in August 2021, Afghanistan’s economy has witnessed a modest recovery, although many households have not. In a new longitudinal study, AAN has followed a number of families across Afghanistan and over time, to better understand how the country’s economic trajectory has played out for individual households. When we first […]

20 Jul 2026

Preaching Without a Party: Independent religious figures find space under the Islamic Emirate

Sharif Akram •

Since the Taliban’s return to power in August 2021, the space for organised religious activism in Afghanistan has narrowed sharply. Islamic parties have been suppressed or gone quiet. The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA), itself an Islamist movement, has worked steadily to bring religious discourse under state control. And yet, an unusual category of religious […]

9 Jul 2026

Bridging the Divide? Radio learning and girls’ education in rural Afghanistan

Sharif Akram •

When classrooms fell silent for older Afghan girls in 2021, millions were cut off from formal schooling, deepening long-standing inequalities between girls and boys. Yet learning did not stop – it adapted. Across the country, alternative avenues have emerged to try to help fill the gap. Among them, radio-based education has taken on particular significance, […]

22 Mar 2026

Pollution in Afghanistan: Air, water, waste and noise under weak governance

Mhd Assem Mayar •

Kabul’s winters bring a suffocating haze, as residents burn coal, wood and even plastic to heat their homes and use outdated vehicles, releasing toxic fumes into the city’s dry air. However, perhaps surprisingly, the worst air quality in Afghanistan is found not in the capital, but in the southwest and north, where dust storms, made worse […]

10 Feb 2026

Thirty Years after Najib: A dossier of reports on the PDPA and its legacy

AAN Team •

Thirty years ago, on 27 September 1996, former president Dr Najibullah was killed alongside his brother, Shahpur, in the Afghan capital, Kabul. He had been sheltering in a United Nations compound since the mujahedin captured the city four years earlier, but on 26 September, the Taliban took Kabul. By the next morning, the two brothers […]

24 Sep 2026

Water, Climate and Survival in Afghanistan: A dossier of reports on the environment

AAN Team •

The pressures on Afghanistan’s environment are increasingly urgent as the climate crisis bites. Our last dossier of reports on this subject was published in November 2022 when Afghanistan – one of the lightest emitters of greenhouse gases and also one of the hardest hit by climate change – had no representation at the international COP27 gathering (because of the […]

3 Jun 2026

Deepening Discrimination: A dossier of reports about Afghan women

AAN Team •

We last published a dossier of reports about women in July 2021, just before that momentous event for Afghanistan, the collapse of the Islamic Republic and re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate. Those reports testified to how Afghan women’s efforts to overcome discrimination are nothing new. However, their struggles have only grown in magnitude as the […]

8 Mar 2025

Still Under Sanctions, Still Unrecognised: A dossier of reports on Afghanistan, international relations and aid ahead of Doha III

AAN Team •

The United Nations is due to host a third meeting of Special Envoys on Afghanistan in Doha, on 30 June-1 July 2024, to discuss Afghanistan. It is aimed, according to a UN spokesperson, at increasing “international engagement with Afghanistan in a more coherent, coordinated and structured manner.” The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) has said […]

9 Jun 2024

Kafka in Cuba: A dossier of reports looking at the Afghan experience in Guantanamo

AAN has followed the travails of the Afghans held by the United States at its prison camp at Guantanamo Bay on the island of Cuba for over a decade, prompted first by the cases of the five Taleban who were released in exchange for US serviceman Bowe Bergdahl in 2014, and later focussing on the […]

8 Oct 2023

The Afghan Economy Since the Taleban Took Power: A dossier of reports on economic calamity, state finances and consequences for households

Kate Clark • AAN Team •

When the Taleban captured power on 15 August 2021, the Afghan economy suffered sudden and catastrophic damage from all sides. Foreign aid fell away, United Nations and United States sanctions applied suddenly not to an armed movement but to the country’s government, Afghanistan’s foreign reserves were frozen, the banking sector paralysed, and the web of […]

14 May 2023

Head of customs for the Hairatan border crossing in Balkh province, Abdul Sattar Rashid (second left), with other Taleban on the Afghanistan-Uzbekistan Friendship Bridge. The Taleban moved swiftly to organise and regularise the collection of customs and taxes as they took power in 2021. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 27 October 2021

New AAN Special Report: “Taxing the Afghan Nation: What the Taleban’s pursuit of domestic revenues means for citizens, the economy and the state”

As insurgents, the Taleban taxed farmers, businesses and NGOs in areas under their control, using the money to fund their war effort. On taking power in August 2021, they swiftly moved to collect taxes in the whole of the country. That serious-minded pursuit of domestic revenue collection is both a practice carried over from the […]

28 Sep 2022

New special report: ‘Between Hope and Fear. Rural Afghan women talk about peace and war’

Martine van Bijlert • AAN Team •

As the United States pushes ahead with the rapid and unconditional withdrawal of its troops from Afghanistan, an unrelenting Taleban offensive has driven the Afghan government out of scores of districts across the country. Many Afghans are seeing their fears about the fallout from the ill-considered US-driven peace process come true. Against this backdrop, AAN’s […]

6 Jul 2021

New Special Report from AAN: “Kafka in Cuba, a Follow-Up Report: Afghans Still in Detention Limbo as Biden Decides What to do with Guantanamo”

As newly-elected United States President Joe Biden considers what to do with the almost two-decades-old ‘war on terror’ detention facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, we publish a special report on the last Afghans held there. Two Nangraharis, Asadullah Harun Gul and Mohammad Rahim, have both been detained since 2007. We also trace the fates […]

19 Apr 2021

New special report on Afghanistan’s newest local defence force: Were “all the mistakes of the ALP” turned into ANA-TF safeguards?

Today, AAN publishes a special report looking at Afghanistan’s newest local defence force, the Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANA-TF). Set up by presidential decree in February 2018 and funded and supported by NATO’s United States-led Resolute Support mission, it was intended to be a lightly-armed, low-cost, local arm of the ANA which could hold […]

20 Aug 2020

New special report: ‘Ghosts of the Past: Lessons from Local Force Mobilisation in Afghanistan and Prospects for the Future’

A major new special report, ‘Ghosts of the Past: Lessons from Local Force Mobilisation in Afghanistan and Prospects for the Future’ looks at what is likely to make a local defence force – such as the Afghan Local Police (ALP) or Afghan National Army Territorial Force (ANA-TF) successful. This research sought to understand what makes some […]

1 Jul 2020

The Cost of Support to Afghanistan: New special report considers the reasons for inequality, poverty and a failing democracy

In a new AAN special report, Kate Clark considers the apparent paradox that despite almost two decades of international support to Afghanistan, poverty for most Afghans has deepened. She also explores the gap between the promise of the 2002 Bonn Agreement and 2004 constitution, a multi-ethnic, fully representative government, a democracy with strong checks and […]

29 May 2020

Afghanistan, Five Years of Taliban Rule: An Assessment

Thomas Ruttig •

ISPI, 12 August 2025 AAN contributed two contributions to a dossier, “Afghanistan, Five Years of Taliban Rule: An Assessment” by free lance journalist and long-time Afghanistan watcher Giuliano Battiston and published by ISPI, the Istituto per gli Studi di Politica Internazionale (Italian Institute for International Political Studies) in Rome. First, under the title “Back to […]

12 Aug 2026

What went wrong? Two AAN studies for Norway’s Afghanistan Commission

AAN Team •

In October 2024, Norway appointed a second Afghanistan Commission to evaluate the country’s efforts in Afghanistan, this time covering the period from 2015 to 2021. As part of its review, it examined Norway’s military contribution, development assistance and its efforts to support peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan, as well as the 2021 evacuation operation. As with […]

9 Jul 2026

Untergrundschulen und Online-Kurse: Trotz Taliban-Verboten halten Aktivist*innen in Afghanistan Nischen offen, in denen Frauen und Mädchen weiter Zugang zu Bildung haben

Thomas Ruttig •

Südlink, June 2026: Article by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig for the German NGO INKOTA Network’s north-south magazine (in German), looking at the last niches kept open by activists for women and girls to still be able to access education in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan: underground schools and online courses. While the former are illegal, although often Taleban officials […]

22 Jun 2026

Themenschwerpunkt Afghanistan: Politisch gefestigt, wirtschaftlich auf wackligen Beinen, humanitär katastrophal

Thomas Ruttig •

Asylmagazin 3/2026: AAN’s Thomas Ruttig contributed a comprehensive analysis of the current political, socio-economic and humanitarian situation in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan for the German-based specialised magazine that provides up-to-date background information on legal issues surrounding the topics of flight and migration that are relevant for lawyers and NGOs providing advice to refugees and asylum seekers and […]

30 Apr 2026

Afghan Women Spoke: A People’s Tribunal listened

Rachel Reid •

Afghan women may have been silenced in their own country, but in December 2025, they were given a very public platform to tell the world about life under the Taliban – The People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan. The tribunal took place in Europe, but Afghans were able to watch the hearings via satellite […]

9 Jan 2026

The Conversation: From the morality police to suspected UK war crimes

Kate Clark • Rachel Reid • Roxanna Shapour •

AAN authors discuss three in depth reports: Kate Clark on what has changed in the year since the introduction of the ‘Vice and Virtue’ law in Afghanistan, Roxanna Shapour discusses a survey on men’s views about the restrictions on women and finally, Rachel Reid gives a glimpse into her forthcoming report on alleged war crimes […]

17 Nov 2025