Afghanistan Peace Campaign2 March 2025
Since the re-establishment of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (IEA) in August 2021, officials have consistently rejected all criticism of its policies on women and girls. “Significant steps have been taken in securing Afghan women’s rights,” said a spokesman for the Ministry of Propagating Virtue and Preventing Vice and Hearing Complaints – commonly referred to as Amr bil-Maruf – in its 2023 public accountability session. The basis of this claim was Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada’s December 2021 Decree 83/1, which gives women the following six rights: an adult woman cannot be forced into marriage; a woman cannot be given in marriage to resolve a blood feud; prevented from receiving her inheritance; or treated unfairly compared to her husband’s other wives; a widow cannot be forced to marry her husband’s brother or anyone else and if she marries again, any new husband must give her a mahr.
The IEA appears especially concerned with Decree 83/1’s fifth provision, on a woman’s right to receive inheritance under sharia. “If brothers do not give inheritance to their sisters, the sisters have the right and have been authorised by the Islamic Emirate to complain and write petitions and get their rights. No one has the audacity and authority to deny the inheritance rights of our sisters,” said the Amr bil-Maruf spokesman in that August 2023 session.
Yet any women wanting to take up this right must contend with a culture that considers it shameful for a woman to ask for her share of her father or husband’s or other relative’s wealth – as set out in the Quran – when they die. “A woman claiming her rights to inheritance is not usual,” said Enan, an Afghan woman employed by an NGO working on legal issues, “and when a woman does this, it’s like she’s shaking the sky.”
The authors had heard reports that more women are raising claims to their inheritance rights under the Islamic Emirate than during the Islamic Republic, so set out to find out whether the Emirate is enforcing Decree 83/1 and supporting women’s requests to inherit. In November and December 2024, the authors spoke to ten women as well as some other family members, involved in inheritance disputes. Our report begins with a survey of women’s inheritance rights in Afghanistan throughout the twentieth century, before hearing as to whether things have actually changed.
Edited by Kate Clark and Roxanna Shapour
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