August 15, 2026
Staff Report
LAHORE
On the fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, Special Procedures experts of the UN Human Rights Council issued an urgent joint statement condemning the regime’s systemic repression and warning the international community against diplomatic normalisation.
Five years of stolen futures
Five years may seem brief in national history, but it represents a devastating timeframe for a generation stripped of fundamental rights, education, and autonomy.
“Five years is a short period in the life of a country but a very long one in the life of a child. A generation of girls has now missed secondary education. Another generation of young women has lost the possibility to pursue university studies… Moreover, a generation of boys is coming of age in an environment that normalises discrimination and violence,” the UN experts said in their statement from Geneva issued on August 13.
The danger of normalisation
Rather than fostering moderation, attempts to accommodate or diplomatically recognize the regime only serve to legitimize systemic oppression. “The idea that Taliban oppression is a reality that must be accepted to encourage moderation remains dangerous and misguided… Normalising a regime that systematically persecutes more than half of its population does not promote change; it legitimises oppression. It is premature to invite Taliban representatives to capitals or to accept their diplomats.”
Institutionalised oppression as gender apartheid
The UN experts noted that systematic subjugation of women and girls transcends regional context, amounting to crimes against humanity and gender apartheid that demand international accountability. “We reiterate that the institutionalised system of gender discrimination, domination and oppression amounts to the crime against humanity of persecution on grounds of gender. It is also appropriately described as gender apartheid… The International Criminal Court, which in 2025 issued arrest warrants for the Taliban’s Supreme Leader and Chief Justice… should be given resolute support from States.”
The systematic erasure of women
Beyond the bans on education and employment, the dismantling of legal protections and reporting frameworks leaves women completely exposed to unchecked violence, the Special Procedures experts said. “Specialized protection and support institutions and frameworks for women and children remain dismantled, leaving them without legal or physical protection… Even the capacity to assess the full extent of the harm has been undermined: the institutions that once recorded and prosecuted violence against women have been abolished or hollowed out, so that its true scale… can no longer be assessed.”
Hardened repression and escalating violence
The UN experts pointed out that strict enforcement of repressive mandates has severely disrupted access to basic healthcare and provoked violent suppression of peaceful dissent. “Women have been turned away from hospitals and clinics for their attire or for lacking a male guardian… In June 2026, at least 30 women and girls were jailed in [Herat] for not wearing chadors, and when residents protested peacefully, security forces opened fire, killing 2 people, including a boy.”
Formalising the machinery of repression through decrees
Recent legislative instruments and court decrees further embed state-sanctioned abuses, directly violating Afghanistan’s binding international treaty obligations. “Codification is reinforcing the machinery of repression; for example through the 2024 so-called law on promotion of virtue and prevention of vice, the 2025 decree on preachers and, this year, the decrees on the so-called criminal rules of courts and on the separation of spouses.”
Targeting of minorities
While women bear the heaviest burden, the UN experts said the regime’s forced ideological conformity extends to religious minorities, LGBT+ individuals, and civil society at large. “Shia, Sikh, Hindu, Baha’i and Christian communities are targeted for their faith and identity. Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and other gender-diverse (LGBT+) persons face corporal and potentially capital punishment… Journalists, educators, judges, lawyers, human rights defenders and former officials are punished for what they did, wrote or represented before August 2021.”
The obliteration of civic space and media
Dissent is rendered impossible through pervasive censorship, arbitrary detentions, and the persistent targeting of journalists and human rights defenders in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan. “Civic space remains obliterated. Women human rights defenders face arbitrary arrest and detention, acts tantamount to enforced disappearance, harassment, home raids, and torture… The Taliban’s stranglehold on the media has tightened further through new edicts, continued detentions of journalists and pervasive censorship.”
Escalated regional violence
The UN experts noted that long-standing instability is compounded by violent cross-border strikes, resulting in high civilian casualties and severe damage to critical infrastructure. Cross-border hostilities with Pakistan have claimed the lives of about 500 civilians since October 2025, including 269 patients killed in airstrikes on a drug rehabilitation centre in Kabul in March 2026. The experts called on Pakistan and the Taliban to exercise restraint, protect civilians and investigate potential war crimes and gross human rights violations.
“Since October 2025, cross-border hostilities have killed 499 civilians and injured more than 1,200 in Afghanistan… Some 269 patients, all men, were killed in an airstrike by Pakistan on the Omid Drug Rehabilitation Centre in Kabul on 16 March 2026. All alleged violations of international humanitarian law, by all parties must be impartially investigated.”
Mass deportations and refoulement risks
Despite the collapse of safety and humanitarian support, neighboring and European nations continue to forcibly return vulnerable Afghans to a high-risk environment,the UN experts said. “Millions of Afghans have meanwhile been returned from Iran and Pakistan, many forcibly… European leaders have also publicly expressed their intent to organize forced returns… Afghanistan is not a safe country to be removed to… Mass returns and forced deportations must cease.”
Severe food crisis
The intersection of economic collapse, severe drought, and plummeting aid has plunged over a third of the population into catastrophic hunger. “Over the past winter, more than 17 million people — more than a third of the population — faced acute food insecurity, with nearly 4 million children acutely malnourished… When food assistance reaches barely 2.7 per cent of the population, hunger is no longer a risk; it is a daily reality severely infringing upon human dignity.”
Humanitarian emergency
Restrictive edicts on women’s mobility and employment severely impede their ability to secure livelihoods or access basic relief services. “The impact of the food crisis falls disproportionately on women and girls. Restrictions on their movement, employment and access to services leave women-headed households least able to earn an income or to reach what assistance remains…”
A multi-faceted strategy for accountability
The UN experts said that confronting these systemic abuses requires operationalising investigative mechanisms, codifying gender apartheid, and providing robust support to Afghan civil society. “Countering this repression continues to require an ‘all-tools’ approach… In October 2025, the Human Rights Council established the Independent Investigative Mechanism for Afghanistan. It must not remain an achievement on paper: it requires full resourcing, staffing without delay… and dedicated gender expertise…”
The international community must hold a firm line against normalisation while urgently restoring humanitarian funding and ensuring women’s full participation in Afghanistan’s future. “To States, we say: there should be no move to normalise the de facto authorities unless and until there is demonstrated, measurable and independently verified progress against human rights benchmarks, the experts said. “For five years, Afghans’ human rights have been systematically violated, yet many continue to strive bravely and against the odds to restore them. The international community must not let them down again.”
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
Meanwhile the Amnesty International also condemned the violation of basic human rights in Afghanistan by the Taliban.
‘It surprises me how international community still expect that the Taliban will respect human rights.’ – Tarina Wodod – Human Rights Defender, Afghanistan
The human rights watchdog said that, since the Taliban seized power in 2021, Afghanistan has been in a downward spiral of human rights violations. Women are banned from all aspects of life, abuses like torture and ill-treatment, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, censorship, among others, continue with absolute impunity. Severe restrictions on right to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, and political participation of women have gone unchecked. The return of corporal punishment and absence of an independent judiciary further exacerbates theres issues, leaving victims without any recourse to justice.
AFGHANISTAN: The Taliban have systematically attacked the rights of women and girls over the last five years. Their education, movement, careers and choices have been severely restricted, and their very existence in public spaces have been erased.
📢 Join our global… pic.twitter.com/dlQeyWLYuk
— Amnesty International South Asia, Regional Office (@amnestysasia) August 15, 2026
Amnesty said that the Taliban’s ongoing assault on human rights and civic space, the arbitrary detention since 18 July of six staffs of Women and Children Legal Research Foundation, a local NGO, is deeply alarming. “The Taliban de facto authorities must immediately release them and end the campaign of repression to silence critical voices.”
It’s 21 days since 6 staff of Women and Children Legal Research Foundation were arbitrarily detained in #Kabul with no charges brought against them in court. I am seriously concerned and urge their immediate release. #Afghanistan
— UN Special Rapporteur Richard Bennett (@SR_Afghanistan) August 7, 2026