Five years after the Taliban returned to Kabul, the world has become disturbingly accustomed to the systematic exclusion of Afghan girls and women from education, employment and public life. What was once described as a temporary restriction has hardened into a system of institutionalised discrimination. UNESCO says around 2.4 million Afghan girls have been denied secondary education, with the number potentially rising to 4 million by 2030. Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls and women are formally barred from secondary and higher education. For an entire generation, classrooms that should have been filled with students are instead empty, while opportunities that should have shaped their futures are steadily disappearing.
The restrictions extend far beyond schools and universities. Afghan women have been pushed out of large sections of the workforce and prevented from participating freely in public life. Restrictions on access to parks, gyms and other public spaces have further narrowed the space in which women can live, work and interact. Taken together, these measures represent more than a collection of individual policies. They amount to a deliberate effort to remove women and girls from the social, economic and intellectual life of the country. A generation that once had growing access to education and professional opportunities is now being told that its aspirations have no place in Afghanistan.
The international response, however, has increasingly become a cycle of condemnation without meaningful consequences. The United Nations, Western governments and other institutions regularly issue statements expressing concern over the Taliban’s policies, but statements alone cannot reopen a classroom or restore a woman’s livelihood. Repeated resolutions, reports and expressions of alarm risk becoming empty rituals when they are not accompanied by sustained political and economic pressure. If the international community is serious about defending basic human rights, Afghanistan is one of the clearest tests of whether that commitment has practical meaning.
The United States and its Western allies have a particular responsibility to remain engaged. Washington spent two decades fighting a war in Afghanistan and investing enormous military and financial resources in the country, while repeatedly presenting the advancement of women’s rights as one of the important gains of the post-2001 period. The withdrawal of US forces in August 2021 and the subsequent collapse of the Afghan government brought an end to that military intervention, but it did not erase the consequences of the policies pursued during those two decades. Whatever the arguments for ending an open-ended war, the international community cannot simply walk away from the people who were encouraged to believe that education, employment and participation in public life were rights they could permanently claim.
This does not mean returning to military intervention. It means using diplomacy, economic leverage and international cooperation more effectively. The United States, European Union, United Nations Security Council, Muslim-majority countries and Afghanistan’s neighbours should coordinate their approach rather than allowing the Taliban to exploit divisions between them. Diplomatic engagement should be linked to measurable improvements in women’s rights, particularly access to education and employment. Any concessions or steps towards greater international recognition should be carefully calibrated against concrete commitments and verifiable changes in policy.
At the same time, pressure must not come at the expense of ordinary Afghans. Humanitarian assistance should continue to reach those who need it, while mechanisms are strengthened to ensure that aid is not manipulated for political purposes. The international community should expand scholarships, remote-learning programmes and alternative educational opportunities for Afghan girls and women. Afghan women-led organisations, educators and civil society groups should receive greater financial and political support so that they can continue their work despite increasingly severe restrictions.
Countries that maintain channels of communication with the Taliban also have an obligation to use that access. Diplomatic engagement should not become an end in itself or be mistaken for progress. The purpose of engagement must be to secure tangible improvements in the lives of Afghan people. Quiet diplomacy has its place, but it cannot justify endless accommodation when fundamental rights continue to disappear.
The most troubling aspect of the current situation is the danger that the world will simply become accustomed to it. Every year that a girl remains out of school makes her exclusion more permanent and increases the educational and economic damage to Afghanistan. The longer restrictions remain in place, the greater the risk that an entire generation will lose the skills, confidence and opportunities needed to rebuild the country.
Afghan girls were encouraged for two decades to believe that classrooms, universities, professions and public life belonged to them. The international community cannot now watch those doors being closed and describe its inaction as diplomacy. Five years of Taliban rule have demonstrated that expressions of concern are not enough. What Afghan women and girls need is sustained international pressure, practical support and a credible strategy that makes their rights central to any future engagement with the Taliban. Their education and freedom are not peripheral issues; they are fundamental to Afghanistan’s future.
Shafaqna Pakistan
pakistan.shafaqna.com
Note: Shafaqna do not endorse the views expressed in the article
