Afghanistan

After 20 years of continuous violence by the Taliban and other insurgency movements targeting civilians in Afghanistan, on August 15, 2021, the Taliban took the capital city of Kabul and dissolved the government and the democratic order in Afghanistan, including disbanding the national parliament and the provincial councils. Since then, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan has continued to exacerbate pre-existing challenges, including poverty, hunger, and escalating violence in the country, which is still struggling to recover from the pandemic.

The Taliban regime has severely restricted rights, such as freedom of expression and assembly, and the right to education, for women. Five years after the Taliban’s return to power, these restrictions have become institutionalized. International organizations report that women face near-total exclusion from many aspects of public life including political participation. Soon after coming to power, they disbanded the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, removed women employees from government positions, ordained that many women were not permitted to work outside the home, and banned them from public places such as parks and gyms. Young girls are banned from attending school beyond 12 years of age. The primary schools that are still open are experiencing falling attendance because families are afraid of sending their daughters to school and anxious that they will face persecution from the Taliban if they do. With teachers leaving their positions because the Taliban-led government has failed to pay their salaries, many schools have closed or are running on reduced capacity.

In December of 2022, the Taliban officially banned women from attending universities, drawing international condemnation. In December 2024, this ban was expanded to include access to medical education, which had been the last higher educational option for women since the Taliban came to power. The ban remains in force as of 2026 maintaining Afghanistan’s status as the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from attending secondary school and women are barred from attending university. UNESCO estimates that approximately 2.2 million girls are now excluded from education beyond the primary level. Those who have the opportunity are seeking access to education abroad but that comes with challenges as well. In August and September of 2023, Taliban officials prevented 100 female students from going to the United Arab Emirates to study at the University of Dubai. Despite having all the necessary documentation and having been selected for a scholarship, only three of the 100 students were able to leave the country by September 2023.

Journalists, activists, scholars and students, as well as gender, sexual, ethnic, and religious minorities are among the primary targets of the Taliban. After the Taliban takeover in August of 2021, they immediately implemented gender segregation in universities, barring women from male-dominated spaces. They do not allow male educators to interact with their female students without the presence of a third party. When Kabul fell to the Taliban, they immediately took over the American University of Afghanistan, which was one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the country. Drastic changes in the education sector have not only discouraged students from pursuing their education but also has led to a decrease in the number of scholars in higher education in the country. Many university professors have left the country since the Taliban came to power, while many other faculty and students who cannot leave the country have gone into hiding. Restrictions have extended beyond access to education and into the content of education itself. Taliban authorities have banned books and teaching materials that they believe is inconsistent with their ideological framework, including texts by female authors. The Taliban have also introduced dress code rules for remaining university students. In April 2026, 20 students at Herat University were arrested for not following the dress code regulations.

The Taliban also target individual scholars and other members of the academic community. An example is the arrest of renowned Kabul University Professor, Dr. Faizullah Jalal, who was detained and allegedly tortured after he criticized Taliban policies on national television. Dr. Mumtaz Sherzai from Khost University is another scholar who was forcefully disappeared and later discovered dead with evidence of torture. Scholars critical of the government, especially those committed to women’s education are targeted by the Taliban regime. One example is Professor Ismail Mashal, who was arrested in February of 2023 while distributing free books near the Ministry of Education. Professor Mashal was arrested for a social media post, contents of which allegedly constituted “provocative actions against the Taliban government”. In December 2024, the Taliban forced 12 professors to resign from their positions at Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani University due to ideological disagreements with the Taliban. Similarly, in May 2025, the Taliban’s Ministry of Higher Education dismissed 50 faculty and staff members from Bamiyan University, with most members dismissed being from the minority Hazara ethnic group. Additionally, they also shut down four private universities that are known for their affiliation with ethnic and religious minority groups, such as the Shia Muslim community.

More recently, the border conflict between Pakistan and Afghanistan has also impacted the educational experiences of students. Border closures have interrupted the movement of Afghan students studying in Pakistan and Pakistani students in Afghanistan, with students reporting being stranded and unable to return home or continue their studies normally. The Taliban government also claimed in April 2026 that Pakistan was behind the bombing of a university in Afghanistan’s eastern province, resulting in the death of seven people and 75 injuries, including a professor and 30 university students.

Endangered Scholars Worldwide (ESW) continues to monitor the situation in Afghanistan closely. The reduced visibility of new cases is not an indicator of reduction in risk, rather, it indicates that many of the restrictions that emerged following the Taliban’s return to power have become institutionalized, reflecting the extent to which restrictions on higher education, academic expression, and women’s access to education have become entrenched under Taliban rule.

ESW stands with all Afghan students and scholars whose lives, careers, and education have ended since the Taliban’s return to power. ESW stands with all Afghans who are living under the rule of the Taliban, and condemns the persecution of gender, sexual, religious, and ethnic minorities. We urge the international community to make every effort to make the Afghan government honor their obligations under international humanitarian law and human rights treaties, including to ensure free and unhindered humanitarian access to people in need of assistance and protection, open borders for the safe movement of students, faculty, artists, human rights activists, and journalists; and to honor the right to education and free expression.

In order to lend your support to Afghan scholars, students, and civilians around the world, we have compiled a list of resources available through the New University in Exile Consortium and the larger academic and activist communities and we urge you to speak out on their behalf.

(Last updated June 2, 2026)

Please send appeals to the following:

Mr. Naseer Ahmad Faiq

Chargé d’affaires, a.i. of Afghanistan to the United Nations,

Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan to the United Nations in New York

Address: 633 Third Avenue, Floor 27A, New York, NY 10017

Email: web@afghanistan-un.org

Phone: 212.972.1212

H.E. Mr. Nasir Ahmad Andisha

Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary,

Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office in Geneva

Address: Avenue de France 23, 1202 Geneva