Five Years On, Afghan Women Describe a Life Closed In

Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, women interviewed across the country say the boundaries of ordinary life have narrowed dramatically. Education, paid work, travel and access to medical care now come with restrictions that have changed not only what women can do, but what many believe their daughters will be able to become.

The accounts collected by the BBC Afghan service come from Kabul and rural communities. Several women used different names because they feared reprisals. Their experiences do not describe one isolated order or a temporary disruption. Together, they show how successive rules have reached into classrooms, workplaces, clinics, family decisions and public space.

Education has become a dividing line

Afghanistan remains the only country where girls are officially barred from secondary and higher education. Girls can attend school only through Grade 6 under the present system, leaving millions without a conventional route to complete their studies. One young woman told the BBC that she finished secondary lessons online, but her ambition to become a pilot now felt beyond reach.

The Taliban's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, rejected the description of a complete exclusion. He said millions of girls attend schools and religious seminaries and argued that women continue to work as teachers, civil servants and entrepreneurs. Yet religious schooling does not replace the specialist education needed to train doctors, engineers and other professionals. The long-term question is therefore larger than current enrolment: it concerns whether an entire generation can gain recognised qualifications and enter skilled work.

UN figures cited in the report put female employment at only 7 percent. That number captures part of the economic cost. When trained women are removed from newsrooms, offices and professional services, households lose income and the country loses experience that is difficult to rebuild.

Healthcare restrictions carry consequences

The pressure is especially serious in healthcare. Afghanistan already has one of the world's highest maternal mortality rates. Rules that limit when women may be treated by male doctors can make the shortage of trained female professionals more dangerous, particularly in remote districts.

A midwife described losing a mother of six who arrived from a distant area. The baby survived, but the death left a family without its mother. For women expecting daughters, the education and health problems are connected: fewer girls studying medicine today may mean fewer female doctors available tomorrow.

Travel requirements can add another barrier. A woman who needs a male chaperone may be unable to reach a clinic quickly, even where care is technically available. Distance, poverty and staffing shortages then compound the legal and social limits.

Punishment and fear shape public life

Women also described public floggings and detention. The Taliban has resumed corporal punishment, and official records say hundreds of people have been flogged since 2021. One woman said she was whipped before a male crowd after being forced to sign a confession. Another recalled imprisonment following a relationship with a man she hoped to marry.

Such cases have an effect beyond the people directly punished. Families become more cautious, women limit movement and witnesses learn that private decisions can carry public consequences. This climate also makes independent reporting difficult because those speaking to journalists risk being identified.

The argument over what comes next

Taliban officials insist that women are active in parts of the economy and say the restrictions are not absolute. Their defence, however, does not resolve the central issues raised by the women themselves: the loss of formal education beyond primary school, exclusion from many jobs, constrained movement and unequal access to treatment.

International pressure has so far not produced a reversal of the education bans. Sanctions, diplomatic isolation and humanitarian needs are intertwined, while ordinary Afghans continue to face poverty. Any policy response must distinguish between pressure on the authorities and assistance for a population that depends heavily on aid.

The women who spoke also expressed persistence. Some continue studying online, supporting other women or finding limited ways to work. Their efforts cannot substitute for access to public institutions, but they show that ambition has not disappeared. Five years on, the defining question is whether Afghanistan will reopen those institutions to women and girls before the damage to skills, health and opportunity becomes even harder to repair.

This Novexa News report is based on verified reporting by the BBC Afghan service and publicly available United Nations data cited in that coverage.