KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – The Taliban’s Morality Law has intensified the systematic suppression of women and girls, according to a new UN report. Enacted by the Taliban’s Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in 2024, the law enshrines into writing what was previously enforced through ambiguous verbal orders.
While the Taliban claim the law is based on Islamic principles, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) warns it provides the regime sweeping powers that are being used to control nearly every aspect of women’s lives. The law criminalizes undefined “immoral behaviour” and grants PVPV enforcers broad discretionary authority with little legal clarity.
The law’s provisions mandate gender segregation in all public spaces and strictly regulate how women dress, travel, and work. Women are banned from entering hammams, restaurants, and public parks if men are present. They are forbidden from traveling long distances without a mahram, a male guardian. They are not allowed to appear in media or public campaigns, and must comply with a strict hijab code or risk punishment—sometimes against their male relatives.
UNAMA observed that while some of the law’s clauses are now on paper, many remain vaguely worded, leaving their implementation open to arbitrary enforcement. The Taliban have also expanded the notion of enforcement beyond official bodies. Responsibility for controlling women’s behaviour now falls increasingly on community leaders, religious clerics, and family members.
Since the hijab decree of 2022, male relatives have been held accountable for women’s non-compliance. Under the morality law, families must even provide guarantees for a detainee’s future “good behaviour” before release. This has incentivized households to police their own, effectively embedding state surveillance within private life.
UN data shows that between August and October 2024, enforcement by male family members doubled from 22% to 44%. Enforcement by religious leaders rose from 26% to 45%, and community leaders from 18% to 33%. This internalization of Taliban norms within families risks normalizing repression over time.
The law has also worsened conditions for women working in the humanitarian sector. After bans in December 2022 and April 2023 restricted women from working with NGOs and the UN, some workaround arrangements were still possible. But following the morality law’s introduction, the space for these workarounds has narrowed.
In December 2024, 54% of aid organizations reported staff anxiety over movement and dress codes—a rise of 18% since September. Nearly half said Afghan women could no longer go to their offices. 43% percent reported women were barred from fieldwork. Taliban’s morality police visited nearly half of the organizations to enforce compliance.
Since September 2021, the Taliban’s bans have heavily impacted education for Afghan women and girls. Girls above sixth grade were barred from school, and women were later banned from universities and medical institutes. Taliban morality police have routinely visited schools and madrassas to enforce these restrictions. Their presence has disrupted learning, while inspectors monitored dress codes, enforced gender segregation, and at times applied arbitrary rules.
The regime’s morality law also mandates Hanafi jurisprudence as the sole basis for determining acceptable educational content. In September 2024, the Taliban ordered the removal of books deemed incompatible with Hanafi teachings, including those on Shia and Salafi beliefs, politics, and various literary works. Provincial authorities, particularly Departments of Information and Culture, have been confiscating such books from libraries and bookshops and pressuring publishers to cease printing or selling them, further eroding academic freedom and cultural diversity in the country.
Humanitarian groups also reported a surge in harassment from men and community members acting as self-appointed enforcers. The number jumped from 10% in September to 26% in December. Forty-nine percent said they could no longer hold meetings with Afghan women, and 60% said they could no longer get consent for photographing people during aid activities.
Since September 2024, the Taliban have enforced a nationwide ban on images of living beings in the media, leading to the shutdown or content restrictions of several TV stations in provinces like Badghis, Helmand, Kandahar, and Uruzgan. The morality law, particularly Article 17, mandates compliance with Sharia and prohibits depictions of living beings, while Article 13 restricts women’s voices, further limiting their roles in media.
Media outlets now face regular inspections by Taliban morality police, who enforce broad and inconsistently applied rules. These restrictions have led to increased censorship, self-censorship, and a decline in advertising revenues and viewership, further shrinking the space for press freedom and women’s participation in journalism.
While the Taliban claim the law upholds public morality and Islamic values, the evidence suggests it is being used to institutionalize gender apartheid. UNAMA warns that this is not merely a rollback of women’s rights, but a restructuring of Afghan society itself—where surveillance, punishment, and fear govern the daily lives of half the population.
