RAWANews: Local sources in Helmand say that a 45-year-old man, who already has two other wives, has married a 6-year-old girl. According to the sources, the girl’s father gave her in marriage to this older man “in exchange for money.” Child marriage, particularly the marriage of young girls to elderly or middle-aged men, is considered one of the widespread cultural forms of violence across Afghanistan, which has significantly increased since the Taliban’s return to power.      Full news...

WePresent: Over the course of six months, photographer Kiana Hayeri and researcher Melissa Cornet created a portrait of the lives of Afghan women under the strict regime of the Taliban. In a country facing one of the most severe women’s rights crises in the world, “No Woman’s Land” captures their struggles, but also shines a light on the subtle yet powerful ways they are resisting. from secret classrooms to moments of quiet togetherness at home. Here, Hayeri tells Phoebe West how the pair approached the project despite the limited access under the Taliban regime, and why resistance is a necessity for the women of Afghanistan.      Full news...

RAWANews: Zalala Hashimi, a well-known Pashto singer and finalist in Season 12 of Afghan Star, has been missing for over two weeks in Kabul. Her husband reported that she left home to visit a friend but never returned. Efforts to locate her have failed, and both her friend and family claim no knowledge of her whereabouts.      Full news...

RAWANews: Kobra Rezaee, just 26 years old and an Afghan refugee struggling to survive in Iran, vanished nearly two months ago after leaving for work—and what was found shattered any sense of humanity. In early June, her dismembered body was horrifically dumped like trash in the Pishva area of Varamin, near Tehran. Her limbs were severed, and parts of her—along with her phone and ID—are still missing, erased as if she never existed. DNA tests painfully confirmed the unbearable truth: this young woman’s life was ended in the cruelest way imaginable.      Full news...

Rukhshana: A young woman has died after setting herself on fire in Taywara district of Ghor province in an alleged attempt to escape a forced marriage, local sources told Rukhshana Media. The self-immolation occurred Sunday on the same day that the woman was allegedly to be taken to the brother of local Taliban commander in Ghor, sources said.      Full news...

Daily 8am: This article was written by Behnia for Hasht-e Subh Daily and published on March 27, 2025. An edited version of the article is published on Global Voices under a media partnership agreement. Following the Taliban’s imposition of restrictions on women’s education, academic pursuits, and employment, many women and girls have turned to various addictive substances in Afghanistan. Hasht-e Subh Daily’s investigative report revealed that girls and women use tobacco products as well as sedative and anti-anxiety medications to escape psychological pressures, mental strain, and depression.      Full news...

The Guardian: When the Taliban began marching towards cities across Afghanistan in the summer of 2021, Alia, a 22-year-old Afghan journalist, found herself doing some of the most important work of her short life and career.In the weeks leading up to the Taliban takeover in August, Alia’s voice on the radio became familiar to many in northern Afghanistan. She reported on the withdrawal of foreign troops, the siege of government offices and on the detention of former officials in her province.      Full news...

Reuters: Since seizing power in 2021, Afghanistan's Taliban administration has rolled back hard-fought rights won by Afghan women and girls during two decades of rule by American-backed governments.The International Criminal Court prosecutor on Thursday said he had applied for arrest warrants for Taliban leaders, including supreme spiritual leader Haibatullah Akhundzada, accusing them of crimes against humanity for widespread discrimination against women and girls.      Full news...

RASC News Agency: On Saturday, the first day of Ramadan, Whitney Wright, an American adult film actress, released new images documenting her travels across various Afghanistan cities. In one particularly striking photograph, she is seen carrying a Kalashnikov rifle over her shoulder, raising questions about the nature of her visit. It appears that Wright is moving freely across the country under Taliban protection. Previously, she had shared footage of herself at Band-e Amir, Afghanistan’s renowned national park.      Full news...

National Post: She was 20 years old, dreaming of a fulfilled life. The smart, ambitious young woman was among 20 Afghan women and girls enrolled in a secret school, seeking knowledge and a future.But the Taliban were back in charge after Western forces withdrew from Afghanistan in September 2021, and they had different plans, as did her authoritarian, ultra-conservative father; she would marry an Afghan man of his choosing living in Turkey, a man she did not love.      Full news...

CNN: The Taliban suspended the operation of Afghanistan’s only women’s radio station after raiding its premises on Tuesday, deepening the exclusion of women from public life and society since the group took power in 2021. Kabul-based Radio Begum – a station run by women with content aimed at women’s education – said officers from the Taliban’s information and culture ministry restrained the station’s staff as it searched its premises in the nation’s capital.      Full news...

Times Now News: Ever since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban have ordered the most brutal reversal of women's rights. Women and girls have lost access to education, jobs, public spaces, and even basic rights—many of which most of us would take for granted. Women around the world have been fighting for their rights, and this has dealt a grievous blow to all those efforts. Upon their return, the Taliban have established the most regressive government. Actor Meryl Streep, who attended an event in September last year as part of the UN General Assembly in New York, spoke about the situation facing women and girls in Afghanistan.      Full news...

France 24: The Taliban’s supreme leader has issued an order banning the construction of windows in residential buildings that overlook areas used by Afghan women and saying that existing ones should be blocked. According to a statement released late Saturday by the Taliban government spokesman, new buildings should not have windows through which it is possible to see “the courtyard, kitchen, neighbour’s well and other places usually used by women”.      Full news...

The Associated Press: The Taliban say they will close all national and foreign nongovernmental groups in Afghanistan employing women, the latest crackdown on women’s rights since they took power in August 2021. The announcement comes two years after they told NGOs to suspend the employment of Afghan women, allegedly because they didn’t wear the Islamic headscarf correctly. In a letter published on X Sunday night, the Economy Ministry warned that failure to comply with the latest order would lead to NGOs losing their license to operate in Afghanistan.      Full news...

AFP: Health officials met with directors of education institutes on Monday in the capital Kabul to inform them of the ruling, an official from the public health ministry who was not authorised to speak to the media told AFP. "There is no official letter but the directors of institutes were informed in a meeting that women and girls can't study anymore in their institutes," he said. "They were not provided with any details and justification and were just told of the order of the supreme leader and were asked to implement it."      Full news...

The Guardian: Destitute Afghan women arrested for begging under draconian new Taliban laws have spoken of “brutal” rapes and beatings in detention. Over the past few months, many women said they had been targeted by Taliban officials and detained under anti-begging laws passed this year. While in prison, they claim they were subjected to sexual abuse, torture and forced labour, and witnessed children being beaten and abused. All the women said they had no other option to begging on the streets for money and food for their children after being unable to find paid work.      Full news...

The Independent: The Taliban in Afghanistan have implemented a bizarre new edict that will further curb the voices of women who are already prohibited from speaking in public.Mohammad Khalid Hanafi, the Taliban minister for the propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice, declared that women must refrain from reciting the Quran aloud in the presence of other women, reported Amu TV, an Afghan news channel based in Virginia, US.      Full news...

VOA news: Hardline Taliban authorities in Afghanistan reported Wednesday that nine people, including at least two women, were publicly flogged after being convicted of various crimes, such as adultery. Five of the punishments took place at a sports stadium in Kandahar, capital of the eponymous southern province. Local Taliban officials, judicial officers, and ordinary Afghans were among the onlookers. The Taliban’s Supreme Court announced the details, saying the five individuals were found guilty of adultery, sodomy, and robbery, with each of them receiving 39 lashes and prison sentences ranging from two to seven years.      Full news...

Deutsche Welle: The Taliban recently imposed additional restrictions on media organizations in Afghanistan, prohibiting criticism of their laws and policies and banning the broadcast of live political shows, according to Afghanistan Journalists Center (AFJC), an independent organization supporting the media and press freedom in Afghanistan. The AFJC said the Taliban instructed media managers during a meeting on September 21 that the topics for political shows must be approved first by Taliban members. The Taliban issued fresh guidelines instructing media organizations to only invite guests who are approved by the group.      Full news...

The Economist: Last month the Taliban published a new consolidated code of religious laws. It has left Afghan women reeling, with many now searching for ways to leave. It also has implications for the Taliban’s quest for legitimacy and relations with the world. Three years after America’s withdrawal from the country, the situation in Afghanistan looks worse than ever. Even before the announcement in late August, women were banned from attending secondary schools, universities, parks and female-only spaces such as beauty salons. They were not allowed to work in most professions.      Full news...

The Guardian: Afghanistan is at risk of a polio outbreak, health officials have warned, after the Taliban suspended the vaccination campaign over security fears and restrictions on women. The Taliban had “temporarily suspended” polio vaccinations in Afghanistan, a health official involved with the campaign confirmed to the Guardian, because of security concerns and women’s involvement in administering vaccines. A highly infectious viral disease, polio can cause paralysis and death, particularly in infants and young children.      Full news...

The Guardian: “So pervasive is the Taliban’s institutionalised gender oppression, and so slender are the spaces in which women and girls may live freely, that in Afghanistan today almost any act can be characterised as an act of resistance.” That conclusion from Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, encapsulates how unbearably suffocating it is to be female in Afghanistan today      Full news...

The Telegraph: The Taliban is using female workers to spy on other women to enforce harsh new laws. Since returning to power in 2021, the Afghan regime has banned women from working outside the home or attending school and university. But some women are still employed at the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (MPVPV), the body that polices the restrictions, and more recruits are wanted. “They are needed to handle other women,” said an official from the ministry.      Full news...

France24: The oppression of Afghan women continues unabated before the eyes of the world. The Taliban imposed severe new restrictions earlier this month, with women not only obliged to cover their faces but now forbidden from raising their voices, singing or reading aloud in public. Western countries – led by the US and EU – have condemned the new laws but also seem resigned to the Taliban regime, which offers some stability in the region.      Full news...

ABC News: Afghanistan’s Taliban rulers have issued a ban on women’s voices and bare faces in public under new laws approved by the supreme leader in efforts to combat vice and promote virtue. The laws were issued Wednesday after they were approved by supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, a government spokesman said. The Taliban had set up a ministry for the “propagation of virtue and the prevention of vice” after seizing power in 2021. The ministry published its vice and virtue laws on Wednesday that cover aspects of everyday life like public transportation, music, shaving and celebrations.      Full news...

The Guardian: Relief set in the moment Hasina crossed the border into Iran. For two years, the Taliban barred the 24-year-old medical student from continuing her studies. Now, as part of a growing exodus of Afghan women who desperately want an education, Hasina is pursuing her degree in Tehran. “I was terrified the Taliban would prevent me from leaving,” she says. Last year, they stopped 100 female Afghan students boarding a flight to take up places at university in the United Arab Emirates where they had won scholarships.      Full news...

RAWANews: The most recent case that received widespread media attention is the abduction of a 19-year-old girl named Tahira in the Panjab district of Bamiyan province. This girl, who owned a tailor shop in the center of Panjab district, was forcibly taken by the Taliban while returning home and was thrown into a military vehicle. It is said that she was held by the Taliban for three days, during which she was sexually assaulted. She was released in the city of Bamiyan after protests and efforts by the local people. Tahira filed an official complaint against the Taliban, but no one came to her aid. (An image of her complaint form was circulated in the media.)      Full news...

RAWANews: Zarmina Paryani, a woman who protested against the Taliban, was imprisoned and tortured by the regime. She managed to escape Afghanistan with several of her sisters and sought asylum in Germany. In a Facebook post, she revealed that the Taliban had forcibly stripped her naked in prison and took photos of her. Zarmina and her three sisters were arrested in Kabul in early 2022 and, after enduring three weeks of imprisonment and torture, were released. Her revelations had a widespread coverage on social media and sparked collective outrage against the Taliban.      Full news...

The Guardian: The Guardian has seen video evidence of a female Afghan human rights activist being gang-raped and tortured in a Taliban jail by armed men. There have been mounting reports that sexual violence is being inflicted on women and girls being held in detention in Afghanistan, but this video is believed to be the first direct evidence of these crimes occurring. According to the activist, the mobile phone footage was later sent to her as a threat that it would be shared more widely if she continued to speak out against the Taliban regime.      Full news...

Daily Wrap: It has been three years since the Taliban took power in Afghanistan. Since then, they have been systematically stripping women of their rights. Now, in addition, the country’s ruling fundamentalists have reduced by 75% the salaries of the few women who are allowed to work. In August 2021, after the sitting president of Afghanistan fled, the Taliban entered Kabul and took control of the country. Women suffered the most, with their rights being regularly curtailed by the fundamentalists.      Full news...