Abuse of power & retaliationDiscrimination & civil rights

UN investigators documented that Taliban decrees bar girls from school past sixth grade, ban most women from working, and require women to hide their faces and voices in public

Confidence: Confirmed · 4 sourcesAfghanistan · Oct 12, 2026

Subject of this story

Haibatullah Akhundzada, Supreme Leader (Amir al-Mu'minin) of the Taliban, de facto head of state of Afghanistan

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban de facto authorities)

Also named

Oversight

Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan

What happened

UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett has documented, in successive reports to the Human Rights Council, a system of Taliban decrees targeting women and girls: a ban on girls attending school beyond sixth grade in place since the Taliban's August 2021 takeover, a December 2022 ban on women working for NGOs and an April 2023 ban on women working for the UN, and the Law on the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, ratified by Akhundzada and published in the Taliban Ministry of Justice's Official Gazette on 21 August 2024, which classifies women's voices as 'awrah' (to be concealed) and requires women to cover their faces outside the home. In his dedicated 12 March 2025 study of that law (UN document A/HRC/58/74) and his address to the Council's 58th session, Bennett concluded the cumulative, interlinked restrictions on education, work, movement and access to justice are so severe they may amount to gender persecution as a crime against humanity.

Sources (4)

OHCHR / UN Human Rights Council, Special Rapporteur report A/HRC/58/74Study on the so-called 'Law on the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice' — Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, 12 March 2025.

UN NewsThe law ... 'silences women's voices and deprives them of their autonomy, effectively attempting to render them into faceless, voiceless shadows' — Ravina Shamdasani, OHCHR Chief Spokesperson.

JURISTBennett ... warned that Taliban policies have imposed a prohibition on women working and restrictions limiting Afghan women's access to employment, and that requirements for male guardianship are 'limiting Afghan women's basic rights, such as the freedom of movement.'

KabulNowBennett's report, covering November 2025 to August 2026, found Taliban policies had affected virtually every aspect of life in Afghanistan with particularly severe consequences for women and girls.

Response

Haibatullah Akhundzada

No response by publication

Contacted — no response by publication.

Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (Taliban de facto authorities)

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Not yet contacted for this story.

What happened next (0)

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