Fariba sat silently in the back of a taxi, her scarf tightly wrapped around her face. Kabul’s streets, once familiar and vibrant, had transformed dramatically since the Taliban’s return to power. Aware of the risks of traveling alone without a male guardian (mahram), Fariba was nonetheless forced to run errands when her brother was unavailable. Her anxiety spiked as a group of Taliban’s morality police appeared, flagging down the car.
“Where is your mahram?” one officer barked, glaring through the window at Fariba. “Why are you driving her alone?” he demanded of the driver. The officer’s gaze narrowed at Fariba’s partially exposed face, her scarf insufficiently covering her.
“She needed a ride, just going home,” the driver stammered, his voice shaky.
The officers ordered the driver out of the vehicle. “You will be punished for this,” they snarled, dragging him to the side of the road. One of them struck the driver across the face. “This is your last warning. The next time we see you driving a woman without her mahram, you won’t see daylight again.” Turning to Fariba, he added, “You will learn to respect the laws or suffer the consequences.”
Fariba’s eyes remained lowered, struggling against the sting of humiliation and fear. The suffocating silence as the car drove away was heavy with despair.
For 27-year-old Fariba, a former civil servant who had proudly worked for Afghanistan’s government before the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, this encounter was a harsh reminder of her new reality.
“I used to wake up with a purpose,” she told KabulNow in a phone interview. “I worked hard and supported my family. Now the Taliban want me to stay invisible, only allowed out under the shadow of a man.”
Before the Taliban’s resurgence, Fariba lived in the capital where women, despite challenges, could work, study, and be seen in public. The collapse of the Western-backed government and the Taliban’s reimposition of their harsh interpretation of Islamic law wiped out those gains overnight.
The new 114-page morality law consisting of 35 articles, ratified last month by the Taliban’s supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, represents the latest assault on women’s dignity and freedoms. It mandates that women travel with a male guardian, remain silent in public, and completely cover themselves. This law continues a pattern of escalating restrictions, barring women from education beyond sixth grade, employment in most sectors, and access to public spaces like parks and gyms.
UN experts say the Taliban’s new measures echo the harsh policies they implemented during their first rule from 1999 to 2001. The new law stipulates various penalties for disobedience, including verbal warnings, fines, and arrests.
“They are designed to systematically erase women from public life, one law at a time,” Fariba says. “We can’t be seen, we can’t be heard, and soon, we won’t even exist in the eyes of the world.”
A 30-year-old journalist from western Herat reflects similar despair. “I believed in the power of words,” Rukhshana, whose name is changed to protect her identity, told KabulNow over the phone. “Now, being a journalist under these laws is dangerous.” Once thriving in her career, Rukhshana has been silenced. “I can’t even step outside without fearing for my life. I’ve been silenced for being a woman who dared to speak the truth.”
Under the previous government, Rukhshana had a platform to report and advocate for change. The Taliban’s restrictions, however, have dismantled that freedom. Women are now required to be fully covered in public, and even showing their faces on video calls poses a risk.
“These laws don’t just limit us physically; they kill our spirit,” she explains. “We’ve become prisoners in our own country, and the world watches as we fade away.”
In central Bamyan, 18-year-old Shereen once dreamed of becoming a teacher. “I always topped in my class,” she told KabulNow, her voice breaking. “I wanted to teach other girls to see their potential. But now, what can I teach them? That we have no future?” Shereen’s aspirations have been crushed by the Taliban’s education restrictions. Once a student with hopeful dreams, she now faces a future confined to her home, her ambitions stifled by rigid rules.
The Taliban justifies the new morality law as upholding Islamic principles and Afghan values. Its Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which is tasked to enforce the law, claims the regulations “protect women’s dignity” and keep society free from “immorality.” Yet, for women like Shereen, these laws represent an erasure of their rights and identities. “This is not Islam,” Shereen says sternly. “This is their war against women.”
The psychological toll of these restrictions is immense. Fariba describes the suffocating fear and helplessness that pervades her daily life. “It’s not just about losing our jobs or education,” she says, her voice heavy with emotion. “It’s about losing ourselves. Every day feels like we’re being buried alive, our hopes and dreams crushed. The anxiety is unbearable.”
Mental health experts warn that these laws exacerbate an already dire mental health crisis for Afghanistan’s women, who face constant fear and isolation imposed by the Taliban’s harsh rules.
As the Taliban tightens its grip on every aspect of women’s lives, the country grapples with a worsening humanitarian crisis. Over two-thirds of the population—23 million people—face food insecurity, displacement, and a lack of basic services. This dire situation is further exacerbated by a severe lack of international funding.
The international community has widely condemned the Taliban’s new law.
Roza Otunbayeva, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, called it a “distressing vision” for the country’s future. She noted that the law exacerbates existing restrictions on women and girls, with even a female voice outside deemed a moral breach, and gives the regime’s morality police enforcement powers.
Richard Bennett, the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in Afghanistan, described the Taliban’s policies as gender persecution—a crime against humanity. “These violations, if left unaddressed, will have long-lasting repercussions,” Bennett warned.
Human rights organizations have criticized the law as a severe breach of international human rights standards. Amnesty International condemned it as “institutionalizing draconian restrictions” and “systematically erasing women from public life.”
Despite this global outcry, the Taliban remains unmoved. Spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid dismissed criticisms, insisting that “non-Muslims should educate themselves about Islamic laws” before raising objections.
The regime continues to enforce its laws with increasing brutality, emboldened by informal diplomatic ties with regional countries like Pakistan, Iran, and Qatar. These relationships grant the Taliban political confidence, allowing them to implement their draconian laws with impunity.
“Such connections allow the Taliban to secure aid and resources, even as they face widespread condemnation,” notes Rukhshana. “It emboldens them to impose further restrictions like this new law.”
Richard Bennett urges the international community to take decisive action. “Failure to effectively tackle the cycle of impunity emboldens the Taliban’s oppressive regime,” he said. “It diminishes the prospects for genuine and lasting peace in Afghanistan and beyond.”
UN officials and representatives from 25 nations met with Taliban officials in Qatar in June to forge a unified international response. The meeting, criticized for excluding Afghanistan’s women, underscores the challenges of addressing the Taliban’s policies effectively.
For women like Fariba, Rukhshana, and Shereen, their once-promising futures are now constrained by a regime whose laws are designed to push them out of public life, leaving a bleak future where their dignity and autonomy are in peril.
“The Taliban’s brutality is intensifying, while the global response remains insufficient,” Fariba said. “We need more than just words; we need immediate, concrete action. If the world fails to act now, we risk complete erasure.”
