UNAMA Reports Escalation of Taliban Repression against Women and Girls in Afghanistan

Wakil Kohsar/AFP

The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), in its latest quarterly report on the human rights situation in the country, has reported an escalation of restrictions imposed on women by the Taliban.

According to the report, released on Tuesday (28 October), Taliban forces have been stationed at the entrances of UN offices in Kabul and other provinces since 7 September 2025 to prevent women from entering. UNAMA stated that as a result, female staff members have been forced to work from home.

The mission stressed that this move enforces the Taliban’s directive of 5 April 2023, which bans Afghan women from working for UN offices.

UNAMA also reported an increase in educational restrictions on girls and women, noting that in recent months the Taliban have closed down even religious schools, which had been the only remaining spaces for girls’ education.

According to the mission, in August, Taliban agents from the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in Kabul shut down three girls’ religious schools for teaching what they described as “modern secular subjects” such as mathematics, physics, and chemistry. In Badakhshan and Paktika provinces, the Taliban have also ordered that girls above the ages of 10 or 13 are no longer permitted to attend religious schools.