Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: women

women

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 […]

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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 […]

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The Daily Hustle: How to get a national ID card in Afghanistan if you’re a Kuchi

Roxanna Shapour •

The Daily Hustle is our series of first-person accounts by one Afghan about one aspect of their daily life. On our website, you can find stories such as the girl who was so appalled by madrasa education, she persuaded her family to set one up for girls, the labourer and his wife taking in a […]

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Is maternal mortality on the rise in Afghanistan? No official data, but much cause for concern

Jelena Bjelica • AAN Team •

Afghanistan’s maternal mortality rate was already among the ten highest in the world, but it has come under further pressure. The United States’ decision to entirely cut aid to Afghanistan earlier this year has led to the closure of over 400 health facilities and that is likely to have particularly affected women during the most […]

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The Daily Hustle: How one mother cares for her family through sickness, hunger and debt

Rama Mirzada • Roxanna Shapour •

In Afghanistan, years of conflict, economic collapse, and rising poverty have left hundreds of thousands of families struggling to survive. For those already on the brink, a single illness can be life-altering, pushing the household into crisis and making even the most basic necessities, such as bread, cooking oil, or school uniforms, unaffordable. In this […]

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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 […]

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Women and children walk along a street in Kabul, Afghanistan. Photo: Hoshang Hashimi/AFP, 13 September 2021

The Daily Hustle: A young women’s journey home for the summer holidays

Rama Mirzada • Roxanna Shapour •

For decades, Afghanistan has had a huge diaspora who, if they can, travel home to visit family and keep connections to their homeland alive. Since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate,  many Afghan women are apprehensive about returning to the country for a visit. They worry about the Emirate’s restrictions on women and how this […]

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A Taleban Theory of State: A review of the Chief Justice’s book of jurisprudence

John Butt •

In the second of our mini-series on Taleban publications, this report examines what may be the fullest and most authoritative account yet of what the Taleban believe an Islamic state should look like. In his book, ‘Al-Emarat al-Islamiya wa Nidhamuha’ (The Islamic Emirate and its System of Governance), the Islamic Emirate’s Chief Justice, Abdul Hakim […]

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The Daily Hustle: Women take to street peddling to feed their families

Sayed Asadullah Sadat • Roxanna Shapour •

After the Taleban came to power in August 2021, the flow of international funds into the country that helped prop up the economy declined precipitously, and a significant number of people lost their jobs. Women, facing new legal restrictions on work from the Islamic Emirate, have been hit disproportionately hard by unemployment. With few options […]

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The Daily Hustle: Being a widow in Afghanistan

Roxanna Shapour •

The word most often used by Afghans to refer to widows is bisarparast (without someone to take care of you). In Afghanistan’s highly patriarchal society, where men are expected to be the breadwinners and opportunities for women to work are relatively few, being a widow is likely to be socially and economically precarious. They are often stigmatised, […]

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Bans on Women Working, Then and Now: The dilemmas of delivering humanitarian aid during the first and second Islamic Emirates

Kate Clark •

Anyone who lived in Afghanistan during the first Islamic Emirate will find the current stand-off between the Taleban and NGOs – and now the United Nations – over the issue of women working familiar. There is the same clashing of principles: the Emirate’s position that women must largely be kept inside the home to avoid […]

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women education protest

Strangers in Our Own Country: How Afghan women cope with life under the Islamic Emirate

Roxanna Shapour • Rama Mirzada •

Sixteen months since its takeover of Afghanistan, the Emirate has imposed sweeping new restrictions on women’s lives, kicking female students out of universities and education centres, and banning women from working for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). The bans have come on top of the continuing closure of girls’ high schools, the banning of female civil servants from offices, […]

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