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Photo: Zarqa Yaftali/Facebook Zarqa Yaftali, an Afghan women’s rights and girls’ education activist, has received the Zayed International Award for Human Fraternity 2026. The award was presented to Zarqa Yaftali at an official ceremony by Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, President of the United Arab Emirates. In a message posted on her Facebook page, Zarqa Yaftali wrote that she considers the award not a personal achievement, but a recognition of years of collective struggle by Afghan women, women who, despite widespread deprivation and systematic exclusion, have stood up for their fundamental rights. In the message, Yaftali stressed that the deprivation of women and girls from education, work and social participation constitutes an organised violation of human rights and should not be normalised. She added that the silence of the international community in the face of this situation leads to the continuation of injustice. At the same ceremony, the peace agreement between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as a Palestinian welfare organisation, were also announced as other recipients of the award. The Zayed Award for Human Fraternity is an annual international award presented to individuals and institutions that have played an effective role in promoting human fraternity, peace, justice and peaceful coexistence. Zarqa Yaftali dedicated the award to all women who, despite threats and restrictions, continue to work for women’s rights and girls’ education.

Photo: NOORULLAH SHIRZADA/AFP The Taliban’s Disaster Management Authority has said that in the past year, 87 people across the country were killed by mine and explosive ordnance blasts, with children accounting for 67.5 per cent of the victims. Mohammad Yousuf Hemad, the authority’s spokesperson, said in a video message on Wednesday (February 4) that these figures were recorded from 193 incidents involving mine and explosive ordnance explosions nationwide. According to him, a further 333 people were injured in these incidents. Hamad added that over the past year, 58 kilometres of land had been cleared of mines and explosive ordnance, and 24,720 mines and explosive devices had been discovered and neutralised. He said that 155 demining teams are active in Afghanistan, and more than 2,106,000 people have been educated about the dangers of mines and explosive ordnance. It is worth noting that after decades of war, Afghanistan continues to face widespread contamination from mines and explosive remnants of war. According to United Nations figures, around 3.3 million people in the country live within one kilometre of mine-contaminated areas, a situation that directly threatens the lives of children.

Photo: Ebrahim Noroozi/AP Photo Human Rights Watch has said in its annual report that the repression of women and girls in Afghanistan by the Taliban intensified in 2025, while the humanitarian crisis in the country worsened at the same time. Human Rights Watch published the report on Wednesday (February 4). The report states that in 2025 the Taliban imposed harsher restrictions on the lives of women and girls, and that the humanitarian crisis deteriorated due to a reduction in foreign aid and the forced return of millions of migrants. Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch, said governments must pressure the Taliban to end what she described as “horrific abuses” and at the same time expand support for Afghan refugees and humanitarian assistance. According to her, the Taliban’s relentless repression should push governments to seek accountability for those responsible for serious crimes in Afghanistan. The report also says that in 2025 more than 22 million people in Afghanistan were at risk of food insecurity, with women and girls disproportionately affected. Human Rights Watch stressed that no country should forcibly return Afghans who face the risk of persecution or threats to their lives, and called on United Nations member states to support the establishment and funding of a new investigative mechanism on Afghanistan. These findings were published as part of Human Rights Watch’s World Report 2026.

Photo: Aref Karimi / AFP In Nimroz, where poverty has sunk its roots deep into the lives of the people, women and girls are forced to extend their hands to passers-by simply to survive. What is less visible, however, is that under Taliban rule, even this struggle for survival is treated as a crime for women. Shocking accounts from women in the city of Zaranj show that the Taliban not only fail to understand poverty, but respond to it with whippings, detention, and summary trials, proceedings in which there is neither law nor any voice for defence. Shakila, a woman holding her infant child while begging on the streets of Zaranj, told Zan News with eyes red from crying: “We come out onto the streets because of extreme poverty. I have no breadwinner; my husband was killed years ago. But every night the Taliban take us to the police station and beat us for begging.” In a trembling voice, Shakila added: “They have even subjected us to immoral treatment many times. It is difficult to even say it. We have no voice, and no one hears our complaints.” Laili, another girl from Nimroz, says she is forced to beg to provide a piece of bread for her family, but the Taliban respond to this desperation with detention and violence: “I am detained at least once a week. When the Taliban see us on the street, they arrest us, mock us, and beat us.” Azra, another woman from Nimroz who is the sole breadwinner for a family of five, says that when she cannot find work in people’s homes, she is forced to beg, but under Taliban rule, begging amounts to a social death sentence for her: “They put us on trial on the spot. Anyone treats us however they want. They do not understand that we need bread.” These accounts show that the Taliban’s policies of removing women from public life have entered a new and dangerous phase, one in which women’s “economic deprivation” pushes them into “forced begging”, and that very begging then becomes a pretext for detention, torture, and summary trials. A cycle of repression that has now reached its peak in Nimroz. The stories of mothers who are humiliated, beaten, and left to suffer in silence for a piece of bread are not merely personal accounts, but clear evidence of a structural crime against women. Women in Nimroz, with voices that tremble but have not fallen silent, tell the world: “We want bread, not the whip. We want justice, not summary courts. We want safety, not mockery and humiliation.”

Photo: Keystone / AP Photo / Ebrahim Noroozi A number of women in various provinces say the Taliban’s decision to ban the sale of contraceptive medicines in Afghanistan has placed families under severe pressure and has effectively forced women into repeated childbirth. Critics of the policy say that through this measure, the Taliban have not only targeted people’s private lives but have also placed the health and safety of mothers and children at serious risk. Suraya Nabizada, a mother of six and a resident of Jawzjan province, criticised the Taliban’s decision in an interview with Zan News, saying: “Children are a blessing from God, but when we do not even have bread or clothing, bringing another child is only oppression. Now the Taliban do not even allow us to buy medicine to control our family size. Our lives have become captivity, and we no longer have any right to decide about our own children.” Najla, another woman from Balkh province, also described the Taliban’s decision as interference in personal affairs and family privacy, saying: “Contraceptive pills are no longer being sold. It is true that children are a blessing, but forcing us into repeated childbirth has exhausted and broken us. The Taliban are destroying our lives.” Meanwhile, obstetricians and gynaecologists have also warned about the dangerous consequences of this policy. Hadia Mobasher, a gynaecology specialist in Kabul, told Zan News that repeated childbirth can lead to increased maternal and child mortality rates, as well as the spread of illness within families. She added: “Mothers who give birth every year put their lives and health at risk, and their children suffer from malnutrition and disease. This Taliban order means the gradual killing of women and the imposition of inhumane pressure on families. Mothers’ right to choose has been taken away.” Experts say the ban on the sale of contraceptive medicines is yet another example of the Taliban’s efforts to exert full control over people’s private lives and impose pressure on families, a move that constitutes a clear violation of human rights and women’s freedoms and poses a direct threat to public health.

Sent to ZanTV Local sources in Kandahar province report that the bodies of three women who were killed some time ago have been found in the Spin Boldak district of the province. The sources told Zan News on Monday (2 February) that the bodies were discovered in the area of the sixth district of Spin Boldak, near Sargo Mountain. According to the sources, the three women were killed in a “brutal” manner, and their bodies were then thrown into a pit and buried. The sources said the condition of the bodies indicates that the incident occurred some time ago. It has also been reported that the identities of the victims and the motive for the killings have not yet been determined. The sources added that the Taliban have transferred the bodies to the government hospital in Spin Boldak district and are seeking to identify the victims’ families.

Image: Bülent Kılıç/AFP Journalists and media owners in Kapisa province say the Taliban have effectively silenced the media in the province by banning the broadcasting of images of living beings, an action they say openly violates freedom of expression. A local journalist in Kapisa, who requested anonymity, told Zan News that the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in the province has ordered media outlets to strictly refrain from filming and broadcasting images of living beings. He said: “The Taliban are not only banning filming and broadcasting images, they are also trying to take away people’s livelihoods, especially those of journalists and media workers. When images are banned, we effectively become unemployed, and people no longer have a reason to follow the media because there is nothing left to broadcast. This truly shows the Taliban’s oppression.” Meanwhile, the Afghanistan Journalists Center said the Taliban have issued a new order in Kapisa province completely banning the broadcasting of images of living beings, a move that critics say is another step in the systematic elimination of media and the silencing of public voices. According to the Afghanistan Journalists Center, the order was issued on Thursday (29 January) by Jamaluddin Mazhari, the Taliban’s head of the Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice in Kapisa, and was conveyed to media outlets through the Directorate of Information and Culture. Following the implementation of the order, Kapisa National Television has been forced to suspend its visual broadcasting and limit its operations to radio transmission. Media workers in the province told Zan News that private media outlets have also faced restrictions that have effectively made it impossible for them to continue their professional activities and have stripped visual media of their core function. The Afghanistan Journalists Center said Kapisa is the twenty-fifth province in which the Taliban have banned the broadcasting of images of living beings, a decision that indicates this policy is not an isolated measure but part of a broader plan to exert full control over the information space in Afghanistan. At present, National Radio and Television, the local office of the state-run Bakhtar News Agency, Kapisa newspaper, and several private radio stations, including Sada-e Nijrab, Nida-e Haqiqat, and Taneen-e Sada, operate in Kapisa province, media outlets that are now either being forced into silence or continuing their work under heavy censorship.

Photo: European Parliament / Benoit Bourgeois Hannah Neumann, a member of the European Parliament, has said that the Taliban’s penal code in Afghanistan “codifies gender apartheid and the de facto enslavement of women and girls”. Neumann made the remarks in a message posted on the social media platform X. She added that the Taliban’s accountability for their crimes has been delayed and emphasised that “there should be no normalisation with the Taliban.” The Taliban courts’ penal code, which was recently endorsed by the group’s leader, reportedly contains provisions that narrowly define violence against women and children and formally legitimise widespread gender and religious discrimination, according to critics. In response to criticism of the penal code, the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice said that objecting to the group’s penal code is “a crime under Sharia” and that those who object will face prosecution. The ministry said Taliban laws are based on the Quran, the Sunnah, and Hanafi jurisprudence, and that opposing them is considered opposition to Sharia.

Image: Sent to ZanTV Local Taliban officials in Nangarhar province say that seven members of a family have been killed and one other person injured after the roof of a house collapsed in Jalalabad city. The incident occurred at around 12:00 a.m. on Wednesday night (28 January) in the Ghochko area of the seventh district of Jalalabad city. The Taliban said the cause of the incident was water flowing beneath the building, which weakened the foundations of the house and ultimately led to the collapse of the roof. According to local Taliban officials, most of the victims were women and children. The condition of the injured person has been reported as critical.

Image: AI-generated Zan News, through conversations with women and girls in Afghanistan, has obtained narratives that indicate systematic and normalised violence against women, narratives that reflect women’s direct experiences of domestic violence. “Because I refused to marry a 45-year-old man, my father beat me so severely that I thought I was taking my last breaths. My father married me off at the age of 13 in exchange for money.” “My husband cuts the flesh of my body with a knife. People eat three meals a day, I receive beatings four times a day.” “I wish I had died with the first blow, so that I would not have to live death every day.” These narratives were shared with Zan News by Husna, Khatima, and Setara, women who speak of domestic violence. Husna is a 15-year-old girl from Nimroz province who was forced into a child marriage two years ago through beatings by her father. She says her father sold her to a drug trafficker in exchange for money and forced her to marry him. “This man is a drug trafficker, and my father forced me to marry him. I was 13 years old. He said it was either death or this husband. A 45-year-old man came to propose. Because I did not agree, my father beat me so badly that I thought I was taking my last breath. He sold me for 300.000 AFN.” The uncoordinated movements of Husna’s hands and head are signs of the fear and terror that still remain within her, fear of her father’s fists and fear of the man who has consumed her future. She says that on the fifteenth day after her wedding she fell into severe depression and is now suffering from mental illness. Khatima is another woman who is experiencing severe forms of violence under Taliban rule. She says the Taliban not only failed to address her complaint, but also threatened her with imprisonment. The 26-year-old woman from Badghis says: “My husband cuts the flesh of my body with a knife. People eat three meals in a day, I am beaten four times a day. My father did not know he was addicted. It has been about five years since my marriage. Every day he cuts my back and thighs with a knife and says, find money, otherwise I will keep cutting your flesh until you die.” She added that when she went to the Taliban’s Department for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice to seek a divorce, she was threatened. “Two months ago I went to the Taliban and said my husband beats me and I want a divorce. The Taliban official said, put this woman in prison; complaining about one’s husband is a sin. He said you have no right to divorce, if your husband wants, he will divorce you. If you complain again, you will end up in prison yourself.” Setara, another woman from Ghazni province, says her father forced her to marry a man who already had another wife. She describes the early days of her married life as follows: “The first night my husband came to our house, I was scared. He was much older. When everyone left, he told me to come and lie on the bed. I was frightened and tried to run away. He struck me so hard with a flask that I lost consciousness. I wish I had died with that first blow, rather than being beaten every day. The next day I told my father. My father said even if he kills you, he is your husband and has the right. I do not know where my own rights are. Why does a man have rights, but a woman does not?” Setara says she went to the Taliban authorities to escape the violence, but they humiliated her as well. “I went to the police district and said my husband beats me every day. The Taliban laughed and said go and cook food for him, it will get better. One of them mocked me and said, you must not be attractive, that is why he beats you.” These are not just narratives, but open wounds of women who, under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, have no place for refuge, complaint, or justice. Narratives in which every word carries the weight of the pain of a generation, a generation that breathes, endures, and survives amid fists, tradition, transactions, and injustice.