Since the withdrawal of the US and the Taliban takeover of Kabul in 2021, the country has been suffering from a deep and deadly humanitarian crisis.  The human rights situation continued to deteriorate in 2023 as well, as the Taliban committed widespread human rights violations, especially against women and girls. Currently, Afghanistan is the only country where girls do not have access to primary and secondary education and are banned from employment with most Non-Governmental organizations (NGOs) except for nutrition, health care, and primary education. Moreover, women have also been deprived of freedom of speech and movement.

According to UNDP, the exclusion of women from jobs has impacted 5% of the GDP of the country. On the other side, many NGOs have been shut down in the country due to which the country has lost 700k jobs, now the government has no money to tackle the situation and the people of Afghanistan are facing the worst humanitarian crisis ever.

According to the UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs, 90% of people are living in poverty and 17.2m people are facing food insecurity. Moreover, Human Rights Watch reported that in 2023, 28 million people around two-thirds of the population needed immediate humanitarian aid and 14 million women were deprived of basic survival, they need basic rights of survival. At the same time, 3.2 million Afghan children are acutely malnourished.

The economic and humanitarian decline happened after the fall of Kabul in 2021 when much foreign aid was blocked and the US froze the foreign assets of Afghanistan as their economy was mainly aid-based.

In August 2023, the UN reported since the fall of Kabul around 800 cases of extrajudicial killing, more than 200 cases of extrajudicial death, 144 cases of brutal torture, and more than 100 cases of disappearance of former government employees and security personnel by the Taliban autocrat regime.

Since the fall of Kabul and the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban, they extensively implemented policies that deprived women of exercising their basic rights such as freedom of assembly, work, speech, movement, and access to education, and could not actively participate in gatherings without the men’s guardian. Moreover, they also banned women from working in foreign NGOs and prohibited them from working in any senior position in international or provincial organizations. Those women who have been working for former government, are also unable to resume their jobs in the new autocratic government.

The Taliban also issued a regulation letter to the most of Afghan provinces that women who travel or leave their houses should be accompanied by a male guardian. Moreover, the Taliban security forces also used excessive force to scatter the women who protesting against the autocratic government and detained them for hours and days. While in some areas and cases, their family members were also detained by the Taliban regime.

Besides the deprivation of women from their basic rights, they are also using extensive and unlawful force against the media reporters. Many media channels have been closed and hundreds of people including women have lost their jobs as well. Foreign media reporters are also facing a visa restriction policy when coming to Afghanistan. In 2023, in the autocratic regime many media journalists including a journalist from Tolo News Attaullah Omar, Faqir Mohammad from Kilid Radio, Jan Agha Saleh, etc., and many more names have been arrested since the fall of Kabul. One can assume that how the Taliban regime deprived the people of Afghanistan of freedom of speech and their lives have been threatened every time they live under the autocratic regime.

The UN reported that an unprecedented number of Afghan people need immediate humanitarian aid.  The loss of millions of jobs, the loss of foreign aid, and the shutting down of international NGOs are the main reasons for this humanitarian crisis. People are unable to feed their family and their children are losing lives due to malnutrition. In the mid of 2023, the UN requested international donors for $3.26bn in humanitarian funding for Afghanistan but in the end, only 25% fund was delivered to the people.

The Taliban restrictions on women’s rights are considered the principal reason for cutting the aid by the donors.

Amnesty International reports that the Taliban in Afghanistan persisted in seriously violating the human rights of  LGBTI individuals through threats, targeted killings, sexual assaults, arbitrary detentions, and other acts. Many LGBTI people continued to be afraid that the Taliban would resume its previous discriminatory actions. In the past, this included putting to death people who were thought to be having same-sex relationships. Fearing for their lives, a large number of LGBTI people continued to live in hiding.

It is recommended that the international community including the UN, World Bank, and the government should work with the Taliban to reach an agreement to allow Afghanistan Central Bank access to the international banking system. Moreover, the Taliban should end the violation of human rights allow women for their jobs, and dismantle all their aggressive policies.