Women’s Movement in Exile: Removing Women’s Photos from ID Cards Is Part of the Taliban’s Gender Apartheid Project

The Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile, in a statement of protest, has condemned the Taliban’s decision to remove women’s photos from ID cards, calling it a “clear violation of citizenship rights” and part of the group’s “gender apartheid project.”

The statement says that over the past three years, the Taliban, through a series of discriminatory policies—from depriving women of education and work to imposing severe restrictions on movement and exclusion from public life—have now reached the point of “denying women’s official identity.”

The movement has described the Taliban’s decision as part of an organized project for the systematic elimination of women, stressing: “The Taliban use women’s identity not to respect their rights, but solely to legitimize their illegal rule.”

Addressing the international community, the United Nations, and human rights organizations, the Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile has called for immediate action and serious pressure on the Taliban to prevent Afghan women from being made “faceless and without identity.”

The statement further emphasizes: “Afghan women cannot be erased. We have the right to preserve our image, identity, and presence in all areas. Afghan women are not faceless, they are not without identity, and they will never be silenced.”

This stance comes after Hibatullah Akhundzada, the Taliban’s supreme leader, recently issued a verbal order banning the inclusion of women’s photos in national ID cards. A few days later, the Taliban’s statistics office announced that including women’s photos in ID cards would be “optional.”

Meanwhile, Sara Adams, a former CIA officer, in response to this decision, published photos of several Taliban officials’ wives on social media. She warned that if the restriction is not lifted, more photos would be made public. Adams released these images on her X account under the title “Housewives of the Taliban,” saying the photos were obtained from diplomatic passports.