The Taliban have once again insisted they’re committed to women’s rights. On International Women’s Day, March 8, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid posted on X that the group is dedicated to “upholding women’s chastity, dignity, and Sharia rights,” adding that “Afghan women live in physical and mental security.”
Yet the situation on the ground in Afghanistan tells a starkly different story. While the Taliban tout these commitments, they’ve shut women out of education, restricted their job opportunities, and effectively erased them from public life. Girls can’t study past sixth grade, universities are off-limits to women, and jobs at NGOs and UN offices are largely closed to them—along with travel restrictions that further confine them. These realities expose the Taliban’s claims as hollow and baseless.
Mujahid’s assertion of “physical and mental security” for Afghan women rings equally false. If security means being trapped at home, denied education and work, unable to travel without a male guardian, or barred from cultural and social activities, then this isn’t safety—it’s suppression dressed up as protection.
The Taliban also claim they’ve “curbed violence against women,” but the truth is more complex. Since taking power, violence against women has shifted—it’s not just physical but systemic. Women are stripped of basic rights, their protests crushed, activists jailed, and dissenting voices forced into exile or silence.
To justify these restrictions, Mujahid argued that the Taliban define women’s rights “within an Islamic and Afghan context, distinct from Western culture.” This line has long been their go-to excuse for denying women fundamental freedoms. But it begs the question: Are education, employment, travel, political participation, and the right to live full lives merely “Western” ideas—or universal human rights?
The Taliban’s rhetoric clashes head-on with Afghanistan’s reality. Women’s rights won’t materialize through empty promises; they demand real action. Instead, the Taliban wield double standards and systemic bias, cloaking their hardline policies in religious rhetoric. This approach casts a grim shadow over Afghan women’s future, sidelining half the population from society, the economy, and education—dragging the country deeper into isolation.
