Gender Alert — August 2025

Four years of Taliban rule:
Afghan women resist as restrictions tighten

Afghan women continue to lead efforts to build an inclusive future for their country.

Yet, four years since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the scale and severity of the women’s rights crisis remains among the most extreme globally – comparable only to Yemen. Afghanistan remains a protracted humanitarian crisis, in which systemic and institutionalised gendered restrictions are exacerbating existing needs.

Women and girls continue to shoulder the greatest burdens. As international attention shifts elsewhere, we see the normalization of the women's rights crisis intensify. This multitude of crises is not only eroding women’s rights but also jeopardizing the country’s future, undermining development, and stalling economic growth.

UN Women has compiled an overview of ten key issues which underpin the most severe women’s rights crisis in the world, affecting 21 million women living in Afghanistan. This Gender Alert illustrates how these issues are contributing to the normalization of restrictions since the Taliban takeover, while outlining four priority actions for the years to come.