Five years after Taliban forces entered Kabul in August 2021, Afghan girls describe their lives stripped of expectation. "I don't think things will be OK. I don't hope for any future," one girl said. The words reflect a pattern Human Rights Watch has documented across five years of reporting on conditions inside the country.
The Taliban barred girls from secondary education in March 2022 and extended the ban to universities and higher education shortly after. Girls who had been on track to become doctors, teachers, engineers and journalists were told to stay home after sixth grade. The ban has now affected an entire generation of school-age girls, with no reversal announced or indicated by Taliban leadership.
Restrictions extend well beyond classrooms. Women face severe limits on employment, freedom of movement and freedom of expression. Those constraints have made it difficult for humanitarian aid organizations to reach women and girls directly, cutting them off from services they need to survive.
The humanitarian situation has deteriorated alongside the rights crisis. Following the cutoff of most foreign assistance after August 2021, half the country's population required food and medical assistance. More than 3.7 million children face acute malnutrition, according to Human Rights Watch. Health services have been severely weakened across the country.
The crisis has been compounded by mass returns of Afghan refugees forced out of Pakistan and Iran. Most returnees arrived without housing, income or any means of subsistence, adding pressure to a system already near collapse.
Journalists and activists have fared no better. Taliban forces beat and detained reporters after taking power, imposed restrictions on coverage and monitored newsrooms. Hundreds of media outlets shut down in the years that followed. Women journalists were pushed off the air or out of newsrooms entirely. Many reporters fled the country or stopped working altogether.
Abuses against former government personnel have been severe. Despite public pledges of amnesty issued by Taliban leaders when they entered Kabul, Human Rights Watch documented summary executions and enforced disappearances in multiple provinces. Several hundred members of the former government's security forces have been victims of enforced disappearance or extrajudicial killing.
Armed conflict has not ended with the Taliban's consolidation of power. Renewed fighting with Pakistan and sporadic attacks by the Islamic State group have caused hundreds of civilian casualties. The opposition controls no territory and lacks effective foreign backing that would allow it to mount a sustained insurgency, according to assessments by Afghan researchers and former officials.
Efforts to pursue accountability gained new momentum in 2025. The International Criminal Court issued arrest warrants related to abuses in Afghanistan. The United Nations created an investigative body in what Human Rights Watch called a landmark development for justice efforts in a conflict where accountability has been virtually absent for decades.
The Taliban's grip on power appears stable by most assessments. No armed opposition controls territory inside Afghanistan. Foreign governments have remained divided over whether to engage with Taliban authorities, with international isolation continuing to limit the flow of aid while failing to produce policy changes from Kabul.
For the girls who grew up expecting a different life, the fifth anniversary carries no sign of relief. The ban on secondary and higher education remains in place. Movement restrictions remain enforced. And the generation that lost five years of schooling cannot recover those years, whatever comes next.
