25 Years in Afghanistan review – the extraordinary life of an optimist

August 17, 2026

Mir Hussain remembers the first time he saw a video camera: “I looked at it and it looked straight back at me.” His relationship with this all-seeing eye has broadened and deepened in the years that followed. Since 2002, when Phil Grabsky and Shoaib Sharifi first started documenting his story, Mir has lived an extraordinary life: grinding poverty and impossibly hard work, eking out a living in the mountainous Bamiyan province and then in urban Afghanistan, but combined with a remarkable level of exposure to the world, via modern media.

Mir and his family first appeared on our screens in 2021, in the Bafta-winning film My Childhood, My Country – 20 Years in Afghanistan. This updated reversioning of that film contains plenty of the same footage but also, in a telling update, hits very differently in the light of what happened that year. In April 2021, US president Joe Biden announced the withdrawal of American soldiers from Afghanistan. Essentially, the US (and their allies, including Britain) abandoned the country to the Taliban extremists. The knowledge of this incipient horror looms unavoidably large; the whole film now feels like foreshadowing.

“This is the story of my country,” says Mir. “A country that, despite everything, I love.” As even casual students of modern history will know, the word “everything” is doing a lot of work in that sentence – Afghanistan’s recent history has included invasions and occupations by Russia and America, and military engagements with other countries in the region, too. Afghanistan has gained a reputation for being unconquerable, but it’s tragic that every decade or so, someone still feels the need to test this.

This documentary offers an insight into life at the sharp end. Mir is a bright kid, but he often misses school because he has to plough the fields, or drive his family’s donkeys or work down a coalmine. He’s remarkably ebullient as a child: “We lived in a cave. It was quite good fun.” All the time, American planes fly overhead and the family gaze at them, hoping they might represent salvation and progress. The grim, hardscrabble details of their lives are interspersed with the airy pledges of politicians including George W Bush, Tony Blair, David Cameron, Barack Obama and Donald Trump. In this new film, every public proclamation by a foreign leader feels like pitch-rolling for the betrayal we know is coming. Meanwhile, the poverty gets worse. “I never thought I’d end up eating grass,” says Mir’s mother, Murwarid. The footage is extraordinary – as intimate a depiction of a family in extremis as you can imagine.

Eventually, Mir marries a woman called Shukria, starts a family and moves to Mazar-i-Sharif – and, when he can’t find work there, on to Kabul. Nothing doing there either. Then, in what should be the film’s central twist, he has a brainwave. “I grew up being filmed,” he says. “So I asked the film-makers if they could help me.” There’s a subtle, entirely understandable bending of the rules of documentary making here. Should the directors be altering the trajectory of the story they are telling? But if they have the ability to help, how could refusing be morally justified? And in any case, doesn’t their constant presence in Mir’s life mean they are influencing it anyway?

Soon, Mir is a camera operator. The film-makers find him work in Kabul and the story gains a dimension. Now, Mir is its subject and, in another context, a professional observer himself. He turns out to be brave and resourceful, specialising in recording the aftermath of suicide bombings. He also diversifies into filming live sport. In a less turbulent country than Afghanistan, we’d be glancing tentatively in the direction of a happy ending.

But no – in 2021, the western forces rolled out and the Taliban rolled back in. For women in particular, life became brutally circumscribed by religious dogma. Fittingly, therefore, in the parts of the documentary recorded in 2026, Shukria is given more space to speak for herself. The couple have had a fourth child, a girl. Shukria regrets this. Mir’s television work has dried up and he’s been forced to return to manual labour. Her husband “doesn’t think that deeply” about anything much, she says. “Mir has gone backwards. He has no plans.” As postscripts go, it’s incredibly sad. Even in their moments of greatest adversity, Mir and Shukria always kept a twinkle in their eyes. But now, the couple seem hesitant and lost. “We are all stuck in this backwardness,” says Shukria.

Right from the start, when it was documenting a small, instinctively cheerful boy and his embattled family, this film managed to sidestep grinding misery. It was geopolitics writ cleverly small, but love and laughter were able to find their place alongside struggle. Throughout, there’s something undeniable about Mir: he has a remarkable capacity for optimism. For that reason, this 25th anniversary update casts a darker shadow altogether. From the moment Mir Hussain first looked at a video camera, he’s been central to a remarkable story. Let’s hope it’s not quite over yet – and that any future instalments might have a happier tale to tell.

 25 Years in Afghanistan aired on ITV1 and is available on ITVX

25 Years in Afghanistan review – the extraordinary life of an optimist
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When You Can’t Afford to Be Sick: From hakims and shrines to the operating table

August 16, 2026

Roxanna Shapour

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What happens when the medical treatment you need costs more money than you have? For many Afghans, illness comes with an impossible calculation. Paying for healthcare places a heavy burden on households, with patients and their families usually forced to cover costs out of their own pockets. For those faced with medical bills they cannot afford, this can mean delaying treatment or searching out less expensive alternatives. In this instalment of The Daily Hustle, Roxanna Shapour hears from a 40-year-old man who spent months searching for relief from debilitating back pain. He turned to traditional healers, herbal remedies and a shrine famous for healing back problems before worsening pain drove him, finally, to undergo surgery, which cost him nearly all the money he had. His story shows how the high cost of healthcare can push people to seek more affordable alternatives, including from traditional healers, and the lengths they are willing to go to when the medical treatment they need is beyond their means.

It started as a dull pain that I could manage with exercises and painkillers. Then, about a year ago, the pain began to travel down my left leg until, on some days, I could hardly sit in a chair.

I’m 40 years old and live in Kabul with my family. I am the sole breadwinner in my household, supporting my wife, our three children, my father and his new wife, as well as my two brothers and a sister-in-law. I also send money every month to relatives in our village in Paktia. I have an office job that requires long hours sitting behind a desk. I can’t really afford to get sick because the entire family depends on the money I bring home each month. A back pain that kept me from doing my job was something I could ill afford.

Finally, my wife insisted I see a doctor. He examined me and sent me for an MRI, which cost 4,000 afghanis [USD 57], on top of his 2,000 afghani [USD 29] consultation fee. The scan showed that I had a slipped disc in my lower back, which the doctor said was causing my pain. He ordered bed rest and ten days of physiotherapy, which cost 5,000 afghanis [USD 71]. But instead of getting better, the pain got worse. So I went to a second doctor, this time a specialist. He looked at the same scan and told me I needed an operation. This was not what I wanted to hear.

Until my back started hurting, I hadn’t really thought much about what an illness that could affect my work or a major medical expense could mean for me and my family. Because I have a job, my family could manage [healthcare] expenses if we tightened our belts for a month. But the surgeon had told me I needed an operation that would cost 150,000 afghanis [USD 2,150], not including the hospital stay, medicines and other visits. That was more money than I had.

I was already scared of surgery and everyone I knew seemed to have a story about someone who’d had a back operation and hadn’t got better. Before spending that much money, or going into debt to find it, I wanted to exhaust every other possibility. So I started looking for less expensive ways to cure my back.

Everyone knows a hakim

Here in Afghanistan, we have many hakims [traditional healers] and they are very popular. Everyone seems to know a hakim they swear by. One friend will tell you about someone who cured a relative and another will recommend someone who treated a neighbour.

I decided to go to a particular hakim that one of my friends said had a reputation for treating back pain. The hakim told me that the problem was a blockage in my rag-e nasa [the traditional word for sciatica] and that he would have to bleed me to drain the thick, dark blood, which was causing my pain. Several people wholeheartedly endorsed this method and told me they knew someone who had been cured of their back pain this way, so it seemed worth trying. The hakim made a cut with a razor – the kind you use for shaving – and dark blood came pouring out along with some clots. He told me to go home and rest, promising that the pain would disappear after a few days.

It didn’t.

So I went to another hakim who was also recommended by a friend. This one made his own tinctures from herbs and other ingredients that he said came from Pakistan. He gave me drops to take but they didn’t help either.

I kept thinking about the operation and the 150,000 afghanis it would cost. I wasn’t going to spend that kind of money unless I had no other options, especially when people kept telling me about other treatments that might work.

I decided to ask the hakims’ union if they could recommend someone. They told me about a rish sefid [an older, respected man] in Kot-e Sangi, who specialised in treating back pain. This sounded promising. He wasn’t just some person claiming to have cures; other hakims were vouching for him. They said he was very busy, but that they’d try to get me an appointment.

After a few days, I got a call from the union saying I could see the hakim that afternoon. He looked at my MRI and told me I didn’t need surgery. He said he could heal me without an operation. This hakim also bled me, this time along four or five veins. Then he gave me two concoctions he had made himself, from herbs he had gathered in the mountains, which he ground into the powders he gave me. He said he had even cured his own wife with them and that people from all over Afghanistan and even from Pakistan came to see him for a cure.

I had to mix one powder with water and drink it every morning. The other I had to mix with the yolks of three eggs from Afghan chickens to make a paste. The hakim stressed that the eggs had to be watani [local], not imported from Iran or Pakistan. I spread the paste on my back like a plaster and left it there for a full day, every day for ten days. But when nothing changed, I went back.

“You’ve had this pain for a long time,” he told me. “It will take time for it to leave you.”

He gave me more powder to use and this time he also gave me exercises and told me not to eat beef, beans or other foods that caused gas or bloating. What he said made sense to me, so I kept at it for another month. But after a month, the pain had eased only slightly. I had spent 8,000 afghanis [USD 115] on his visits and medicines and while it was still far less than the 150,000 afghanis for surgery, it wasn’t working.

A friend recommended that I see a hakim in Ghazni. This involved a long car journey and by then, even a brief trip was unbearable. Still, I held on to the hope that this hakim might be the one to cure me. When I arrived at his office, he told me to get some raw lamb fat, rub it onto my back, bind it there overnight and return the next day, when he would perform a ‘procedure’ that he said would heal me. He wouldn’t say exactly what he planned to do.

I had been willing to be cut with a razor twice, to take drops, drink powders and wear an egg yolk concoction on my back for days, but whatever this man was planning to do to my back felt dangerous and a step too far. This time, I didn’t go back.

By then, the costs were also mounting. I had paid for an MRI and physiotherapy, the bleedings, the drops, the powders, the eggs and the journey to Ghazni. Each expense was small compared with 150,000 afghanis, but together I had spent a little over 30,000 afghanis [USD 430] and I was still in pain. Every time I tried a new treatment, I told myself that if this one didn’t work, it would be the last.

The Shrine of the Lame

Then one of my relatives mentioned a ziarat [saints’ shrine] near our village in Paktia – the Shrine of the Lame [da godano ziarat]. This shrine is well known in our area for healing back pain.

In our area, it’s very common to go to ziarats for a cure. There are many shrines, each known for curing a specific ailment. For example, there’s a shrine where a stream flows from beneath a grave. People bathe in its water because they believe it cures skin conditions. Another shrine is said to cure toothaches by pressing a nail against the aching tooth, while women who have trouble getting pregnant go to yet another shrine.

This is something we grow up with. From the time a child is born, families may take the baby to a ziarat and ask the mullah for a tawiz [an amulet containing religious writings, worn for protection or healing] to keep the child safe from illness, harm or the evil eye. The mullahs who write tawiz have learned from their fathers, who learned from their fathers before them. The shrines themselves also have longstanding reputations and many of them have been there for generations.

So when my relative suggested the Shrine of the Lame, I went. After all, it was a shrine people specifically visited for back pain. At the shrine, the mullah wrote me a tawiz and tied it to my left arm – the same side as the pain. He also told me not to eat beef and to walk slowly. On the way back to Kabul, however, the pain became worse than it had been in weeks. I kept asking my brother to pull over so I could get out and lie beside the road until it eased, then climb back into the car, only to ask him to stop again a little further on.

We had to stop several times because I couldn’t sit in the car for long. Finally, we stopped at a meadow we knew well because my family sometimes picnicked there. It was a hot day and I was sweating from both the pain and the heat. I sat down, took off my shoes and socks and dipped my feet into the stream that ran through the meadow. I let my feet dangle in the cold water for a few minutes before we left. As we drove towards Kabul, the pain in my back started to ease and, by the time we reached home, I felt much better.

A cure, or so I thought

The next morning, I woke up without pain. I went back to the doctor and told him about the tawiz and the stream. I told him I was cured. He sent me for another MRI and said the slipped disc was still there. Whatever had happened to the pain, he told me, the underlying problem hadn’t disappeared. He insisted that I should still have the surgery.

But that day, I didn’t want to hear it. It had been months since I’d had a pain-free day. I felt as if I had been given my life back and I wasn’t going to let him ruin the moment.

For six months, I had no pain. As time passed, I became increasingly convinced that the doctor had been wrong and that I had escaped the operation after all.

Then, one day in April, I was working in the garden. I bent down to pick something up and, when I tried to straighten up, a sharp pain shot through my back. Suddenly, I could hardly stand. The pain was back, as bad as it had ever been.

I went back to the doctor. This time, he told me that if I continued to delay the operation, things would keep getting worse and that eventually they might have to put a rod in my back.

I knew then that I’d reached the end of the road. I’d tried everything I was willing to try, but the pain was back and I couldn’t go on living like this. I had to stop looking for cures and give in to the operation.

Paying for the operation

But accepting that I needed surgery was one thing; finding the money to pay for it was another.

Most of what I earn goes towards my family’s expenses and helping relatives in our village. Friends and relatives sometimes ask me for loans too, especially since the economy took a bad turn and many people lost their jobs or don’t earn enough to support their families. If you have a steady income, people come to you for help and, when you can, you help them.

Several people owed me money, but I wasn’t going to ask them to repay it because I needed an operation. I knew they had their own problems and asking someone who was struggling to repay a loan would have been shameful. I decided to borrow the money for the operation from one of my relatives who was in a good financial position. He knows I have a job and that I will eventually pay him back.

Then, out of the blue, one of the friends I’d lent money to paid me back. I hadn’t asked him for it. I hadn’t even mentioned that I needed money for an operation. He just stopped by the house one day and gave me the 200,000 afghanis [USD 2,900] that he owed me. This was enough to cover the operation itself and the other costs, including the hospital stay, medication, the post-op MRI and the doctor’s visits.

Two weeks later, I was in hospital having the surgery. Fourteen days after the operation, the surgeon removed my stitches. He told me to come back in a month and said I should have physiotherapy to help with my recovery. But I really didn’t have enough money left to pay for it. So a friend who lives abroad sent me some exercises for people recovering from back surgery. I do them by myself at home every day.

I still have pain, although it is much less than before the operation and every day I feel a little stronger. The surgeon says it will take time for me to recover. Sometimes I think about all the things I tried to avoid the operation. In the end, it cost almost everything I had and I was only able to pay for it because a friend happened to pay me back just when I needed the money. I try not to think about what would’ve happened if he hadn’t.

Edited by Jelena Bjelica 

When You Can’t Afford to Be Sick: From hakims and shrines to the operating table
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Everyone Loves an Anniversary; None more so than the media; This time it’s the Taliban’s 5-year rule

August 16, 2026

Kathy Gannon

Substack

August 16, 2025 

Another Afghan carpet telling its tragic history. This one with the date of the Taliban’s return to Kabul in 2021. It shows the Afghans falling from a departing U.S. plane so overwhelmed with fear that even as the American pilots knew Afghans were hanging on to the plane they took off. . Its not clear why they were so afraid the pane was secure so Afghans could enter but also the airport was swarming with soldiers. Why not just turn off its engines and wait for the army to restore order?

Everybody loves an anniversary and none more so than the media.
Yet the anniversary cannot be told without exploring the impact on today’s Afghanistan of the U.S and NATO defeat, its failed 20-year experiment with civil society and its failed isolation policy

After mostly ignoring Afghanistan for much of the last five years, most media outlets these days are competing to tell the story of this devastated nation and offer a glimpse of the 42 million Afghans abandoned five years ago. Why? Because it is an anniversary __ five years of Taliban rule. Yup, five years since the Taliban handed the U.S. and NATO a humiliating defeat and returned to power in Kabul, almost 20 years after being thrown out in the 2001 U.S.-led invasion.

The attention won’t last, but still there is much that is interesting in the telling of the anniversary.

It is not surprising, yet interesting how most media outlets are framing their anniversary stories as five years since the Taliban’s return to power, rather than the more accurate framing which is: Five years since the Taliban handed the U.S. and NATO a humiliating defeat, returning to power in Kabul nearly 20 years after being thrown out.

Regardless, Afghanistan is at least being remembered.

The anniversary stories will rightly remind us of the Taliban’s outrageous ban on girls from school and women from work, the result of the ludicrous interpretation of Islam by the most powerful in the Talban’s leadership, an interpretation shared by no other Muslim nation.

Some stories might elude to the kaleidoscope of militants that have found or retained space in Afghanistan. There will be some that explore the impacts of sanctions, even some with a more nuanced approach looking at what might be working. Some might even give a mention to the increased safety many Afghans feel since the Taliban’s return, even as they pay a heavy price in lost freedoms for that safety.

Others might explore the amazingly brave work being done by Afghans who stayed in Afghanistan, even as they had the opportunity to flee in 2021. It’s unlikely, however, that those stories will explore the failed 20-year experiment at building an Afghan civil society, most of whom were among the tens of thousands of Afghans evacuated from Afghanistan in 2021.

Their desperate departure and evacuation gave the Taliban the opportunity to brand them Western puppets, and that branding hurt those left behind, those who sought to fight for a better future, regardless of the rulers.

In those early days following the Taliban’s return it was the women who found the courage to speak out, demand change through street protests, but they were leaderless. Still they persisted, coming out on the street, braving threats and attacks, occasionally encouraged by leaders from afar. But eventually as the Taliban crackdown tightened and with only distant support to sustain them, they stopped their protests and Taliban edicts became increasingly harsh.

Those August 2021 evacuation flights that followed the Taliban’s return to power robbed Afghanistan’s 42 million people of some of the country’s most educated, its health professionals, teachers, many of its most promising minds. More than 124,000 Afghans were evacuated by the U.S. while tens of thousands fled through alternative routes. Left behind were 42 million Afghans, half of whom are women and girls, left to rely on support and help from afar.

The most devastating blow, however, has been the international community’s abandonment of Afghanistan. After spending 20 years promising Afghans a brighter future and insisting they would not be left behind, many of those same countries retreated to Doha, a costly, yet comfortable retreat, leaving behind a trail of broken promises.

On April 15, 2021, months before America’s chaotic departure from Afghanistan, the then Secretary of State Anthony Blinken met Abdullah Abdullah, who was then chair of Afghanistan High Commission for National Reconciliation.

In that meeting Blinken promised that America would “use our full diplomatic, economic, and humanitarian toolkit to support the future the Afghan people want, including the gains made by Afghan women,” according to a U.S. State Department spokesman.

Then America left.

Dr, Abdullah is still in Afghanistan, refusing to leave and even returning to Taliban-ruled Afghanistan after a visit with his family in India, while America is nowhere to be found, unless you look in Doha, the comfortable, yet costly capital of the middle Eastern State of Qatar.

On May 12, 2021, less than a month after President Joe Biden announced the troop withdrawal, another broken promise was made, this time at the House Armed Services Committee hearing entitled “An Update in Afghanistan..”

At that hearing, David F. Helvey, then Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Indo-Pacific Security Affairs also made a similar promise to Afghans on behalf of the U.S. administration saying:

“But the United States is not abandoning Afghanistan. We will maintain a diplomatic presence there, maintain an embassy there and the Department of Defense will continue doing what we can do, you know, through an embassy presence to be able to support our partners and, as I’ve indicated, address the terrorist threats that, you know, if and as they emerge,” Helvey said.

They terrorists threat has emerged and the U.S. is long gone from Afghanistan, safe and secure in Doha.

The singularly most important story and the one most often ignored about the Taliban’s past five years in power is the devastating impact of the U.S.-led decision not to return to Afghanistan after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, but instead choosing to isolate the country and its new rulers—the same approach Washington used during the Taliban’s first rule from 1996 to 2001.

That approach was a spectacular failure. It gave Al Qaeda room to plan the September 11 attacks, did not change Taliban rule, and failed to persuade or pressure then-leader Mullah Mohammad Omar to alter Taliban policy by opening schools for girls or allowing women to work in exchange for international recognition.

Yet Western governments have doubled down on this failed policy, and as a result have empowered the Taliban’s most hardline leaders, who benefit from isolation, sustaining it with escalating restrictions on women and girls.

For Hibatullah, international isolation provided the ammunition he needed to convince rank-and-file members that the West sought only to destroy Islam and Islamic rule in Afghanistan. Hibatullah also used the isolation to weaken those Taliban leaders, who favored engagement with the international community, casting them as weak and willing to betray Afghanistan’s commitment to Islamic rule for international recognition.

A look at the gradual timing and impact of some of the Taliban’s harshest edicts against women and girls suggest that Hibatullah first tested his authority, then as time passed broadened the restrictions by framing Afghanistan’s continued isolation as against Islam allowing him to consolidate his power and weaken internal dissent.

The initial edicts were ambiguous. The wordings suggested they were temporary, seemingly to reassure Afghans and the international community that it was a changed movement and for some within the movement it was. They would quickly be silenced..

The first edict issued on Aug. 24, 2021 ordering women off the job was presented as temporary until arrangements could be made to ensure their safety. It was permanent, except for health workers, who have since been allowed back to work.

On Sept. 11, 2021 finance ministry workers were ordered home and again it was suggested it was temporary until arrangements could be made for their return, but for most it was permanent,

On Sept, 17, 2021 the Taliban abolished the Women’s Affairs ministry and in its wake resurrected the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, tasked with implementing the Taliban’s edicts, particularly those targeting women and girls.

In September 2021 high school girls were not allowed to return to school, and again the edict presented it as temporary. It wasn’t.

In November 2021 Taliban restricted the appearance of women on television dramas and other programs. In December an edict was issued telling women they could travel only a short distance without the accompaniment of a male relative.

By the time 2022 rolled around the restrictions became more frequent, more harsh and the ambiguity was gone. Hibatullah clearly felt more confident, more entrenched, showing less regard for dissenting voices within the movement’s leadership.

In March, 2022 just hours before schools were to reopen for all girls in all grades, the Taliban leader, Hibatullah, rescinded the Taliban’s promise to open the schools and ordered them closed.

This move was particularly telling because had the school opening proceeded as promised, it is almost certain the U.S. and other Western countries would have returned to Afghanistan. They might even have given the Taliban rulers recognition.

Clearly Hibatullah neither cared about recognition nor wanted their return.

Additional restrictions in 2022 included an edict ordering airlines to refuse to board women passengers without a male companion. Other edicts demanded women wear the full hijab, preferably the burqa, but not required.

And the edicts continued: Women TV presenters were required to cover their faces, flight attendants were removed from their jobs, and women were barred from parks and gyms and provided only limited acces to amusement parks.

In August 2022 female university students were ordered to cover their faces in the classroom and by December 2022 they were no longer allowed to attend university classes.

The outcries and threats from the international community did nothing to change a single edict, nor did the promise of international recognition move Hibatullah.

Quite the opposite.

As 2023 began so did more edicts from the Taliban leader.

In early April 2023, the Taliban banned women from working in any United Nations office, a clear indication that Hibatullah was unmoved by the sanctions that had been imposed on Afghanistan and uninterested in international recognition. Instead, the ban appeared to be a deliberate effort to push the international community further away.

To his advantage—and to the detriment of Afghans, especially women and girls—the international community obliged the Taliban leader by staying their futile course

The U.N. ban which was issued in April 2023 was distinct from the earlier December 2022 edict barring women from working at all NGOs, underscoring how Hibatullah gradually escalated his campaign against women and girls.

By the time 2023 ended the Taliban ordered all women’s beauty salons closed, eliminating a rare source of income for women as well as issuing an edict banning girls access to private education courses.

In many ways, 2024 was worse. The Vice and Virtue Ministry codified sweeping restrictions on women’s dress, movement, and public participation. By December, 2024, the Taliban had barred women from medical education, including nursing and midwifery.

In March 2024 the Taliban announced that public flogging and stoning to death would be enforced for women violating the Taliban’s interpretation of Sharia or Islamic law. Since then there have been numerous instances of such punishments reported against women.

In 2025 a new decree on marriages and women’s rights in marriages was a rare offering of protection for women, reaffirming women’s rights in marriage, including prohibiting forced marriage and stating that a woman’s dowry belonged to her. It also provided a mechanism for girls/women to complain to a court if male guardians violated their marriage rights. It did not ban underage marriage.

In January 2026 the Taliban issued a new Criminal Procedure Code for Courts instituting sweeping laws to formalize everything from criminal punishment to gender discrimination, according to a March 2026 Amnesty International report.

The new code “institutionalizes torture and other ill-treatment through corporal punishment and allows the death penalty for a wide range of offences. Additionally, the regulation entrenches discrimination based on gender, religion, belief, and social status,” said Amnesty International.

An August 2026 United Nations Women’s report on the state of women’s rights since the Taliban’s return to power said the Taliban rulers have issued more than 100 decrees targeting women and girls.

While Afghanistan may have vanished from Washington’s headlines, but every day that Washington clings to isolation, Afghans living under Taliban rule are left to carry the cost of a policy that punishes the vulnerable, more than the powerful.

The five years of Taliban rule shows that Washington’s policy of isolation stands as a spectacularly costly failure: rather than weakening the Taliban government, it has empowered its hardliners and left women and girls to bear the heaviest consequences.

If Washington is serious about standing with Afghans, it must stop mistaking punishment for policy and choose engagement by returning to Afghanistan __ which does not require recognition. As many as 17 embassies are open in Afghanistan, and none, but Russia has recognized the Taliban government.

Everyone Loves an Anniversary; None more so than the media; This time it’s the Taliban’s 5-year rule
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U.S. Policy on Afghanistan Is a Relic of the Past

August 14, 2026

By Obaidullah Baheer

Mr. Baheer, who teaches civic engagement to Afghan students and advocates education for women and girls, wrote from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Opinion article

The New York Times

14 August 2026

On a chilly afternoon in Kabul I pulled up to a small auto repair shop to check warning lights that flashed across my dashboard. The shop’s balding, middle-aged mechanic wiped his hands on an oil-stained rag, strolled over and leaned into my car’s engine.

As we chatted over the clatter of tools, he told me he had fought as a soldier for the U.S.-backed government in some of the bloodiest battles of the long, failed war to prevent the Taliban’s return to power.

Moments later, the mechanic stepped away to inspect another car driven by a Taliban official who wore a military-style jacket over the traditional long Afghan tunic. Five years ago these two men might have tried to kill each other. Now they stood together over an open hood, calmly discussing an engine problem. Neither mentioned the war; neither needed to.

That moment last winter offered a glimpse under the hood of today’s Afghanistan — the war is over now, and Afghans are getting on with the prosaic work of reconciling and building a future for themselves.

Western strategy has not caught up with this reality, and five years after the U.S.-backed government finally collapsed with the fall of Kabul on Aug. 15, 2021, that strategy has become a relic.

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The United States has frozen billions of dollars in reserves badly needed by the country and sanctions have largely cut off Afghanistan from the international banking system, making it harder for families overseas to send money home. International aid has fallen sharply and U.S. assistance inside Afghanistan ceased altogether in 2025.

Outrage over the Taliban’s authoritarian rule and denial of basic rights for women is justified. Isolating the country only punishes the millions of ordinary Afghans who are trying to put old divisions aside and move forward.

My own family’s history has been bound up in the struggles that have shaped Afghanistan — and in their consequences.

My grandfather, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, led one of the most powerful mujahedeen factions in the war against the Soviet-backed regime in the 1980s. He fought rival forces during the civil war of the 1990s, and he later led an insurgency against the U.S.-backed government before a peace agreement was signed in 2016. My father, Ghairat Baheer, was imprisoned multiple times by the Soviet-backed government and was a top official in my grandfather’s party. He would later spend nearly six years in American detention.

Many in my generation are determined to leave behind the animosities that defined our forebears’ lives.

After being raised overseas, I returned to Afghanistan in 2018. I am among a network of younger Afghans intent on contributing to the future of the country we see as home. Both before and after the Taliban returned to power, I have spoken publicly and written about the need for Afghan reconciliation and for the Taliban and the international community to prioritize the welfare of the Afghan people. Like many others, I have advocated the right of girls to receive an education, and I teach young Afghan women and men about civic engagement.

This is difficult, risky work.

In 2022, I was summoned by the Taliban. I arrived at an office where a table was arranged with printouts of my social media posts, interviews and articles. Taliban officials accused me of poisoning society and told me to sign a confession. I refused, arguing that people like me had only Afghanistan’s best interests at heart. After several hours, I was abruptly released without explanation.

Two years later, a young Talib who followed my work on social media invited me to another meeting. Some of the same officials who had interrogated me previously were there, but the mood was different. Over tea, we spoke candidly about education, governance and the country’s future. Though we still disagreed on many things, I was no longer treated as an enemy. The passage of time, the persistence of those pushing for change and the scale of the country’s challenges seemed to have made them more willing to listen. We were like the mechanic and the car owner, discussing a common problem.

This is something the West does not see — every day, Afghans push against the boundaries imposed upon them.

Despite severe restrictions, privately owned media outlets still operate, employing female journalists and sometimes covering sensitive issues and challenging Taliban officials. At one point, male TV presenters wore masks in solidarity with their female colleagues in protest against mandatory face coverings for women. Female doctors, nurses and midwives continue to provide essential maternal, obstetric and reproductive health care for women. And courageous educators are defying the Taliban ban on girls’ schooling after sixth grade to teach women and girls online and through other informal means.

This is possible partly because the Taliban are not the insular monolith they may appear to be. Like any political movement, there are factions that don’t agree. Some of the most influential figures in the movement are unhappy with the country’s direction, have spoken openly about the need to educate women and girls — many of them have expressed worry about the impact on their own daughters — and favor greater engagement with the United States.

Whether any of this will lead to lasting change anytime soon is unknown. What’s clear is that isolation and shrinking international aid make it harder for Afghans to make use of the limited but meaningful space they have created.

Funding shortages forced more than 440 health care facilities to close or reduce services in 2025. And after the United States terminated aid, United Nations agencies reduced their operations. Such policies are holding back Afghanistan’s economic recovery.

Turning this around doesn’t have to mean officially abandoning Western principles and recognizing the Taliban. Western governments can restore or expand support for health care, education and livelihoods through the U.N. and other independent organizations. The World Bank already does this, funding a range of programs, bypassing the Taliban government.

However painful the U.S. withdrawal remains for Americans, it’s time the United States and other countries turned the page and supported the efforts of ordinary Afghans to rebuild their lives.

Obaidullah Baheer is an adjunct lecturer at the American University of Afghanistan, which has operated online since 2021. He is a Ph.D. student at the New School.

U.S. Policy on Afghanistan Is a Relic of the Past
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Is it time to talk to the Taliban?

August 12, 2026
Zanny Minton Beddoes

Editor-in-chief

The Economist

August 12, 2026
Sadly, I’ve never been to Afghanistan. Nor have I ever met a member of the Taliban. The closest I’ve come to it was during a trip to China in 2024, when our Beijing bureau chief enterprisingly asked the Taliban’s representative to the People’s Republic whether he would be willing to meet his editor-in-chief, without spelling out my name (or gender). The response was an enthusiastic yes. Then at the very last minute the meeting was cancelled. My colleague, mischievously, wondered whether the Taliban embassy had done a last-minute internet search on me.

Afghanistan is a country whose haunting, arid beauty captures the imagination of many who have been nowhere near it. Its recent history marks a humiliation for Western liberal interventionism, just as in generations past it was the graveyard of empires. The Taliban’s repression of women and girls, repression that if anything is intensifying, is a shocking moral stain.

This week, to mark the fifth anniversary of America’s embarrassing and chaotic withdrawal from Kabul, we are going to focus The Insider on what is going on inside Afghanistan. Has the strategy of isolating the country’s regime by way of sanctions, frozen assets and withholding diplomatic recognition worked? What is life like today for ordinary Afghans? And, when it comes to the world’s approach to dealing with the Taliban, is it time to try something new?

Tom Sasse, The Economist’s South Asia bureau chief, recently returned from a 1,000km road trip inside Afghanistan. He travelled from Kabul to Herat and Kandahar, meeting Taliban officials, business figures, village elders and school girls. He will join us from Delhi tomorrow to explain what he learnt from his travels. Steve Coll, visiting senior editor, will also join the discussion online from his home in Princeton, New Jersey. He is particularly well versed in the history of America’s campaign in Afghanistan, having written two books on the topic. (The show will also double as an unofficial launch party for his third, which is due to be published next year.) Robert Guest, deputy editor, and Chris Lockwood, Asia editor, will accompany me in the studio. They’re both regional experts, and Robert has fascinating anecdotes to share from a reporting trip he took before the Taliban regained power.

In the first part of tomorrow’s discussion we’ll explore what Afghanistan is like today. I’ll be relying heavily on Tom’s insights. In conversations since his trip, he has described to me a country gripped by a grim calm: heavily armed men patrol the streets, music is banned, poverty and unemployment are rife. We’ll also examine how countries are behaving towards the Taliban regime. Only Russia formally recognises the de facto government, but others are also in contact with it. The European Union, hypocritically, won’t offer recognition, but recently invited Taliban officials to Brussels to discuss migrant repatriation. I want to hear from you, too. Should Western nations formally recognise the Taliban government? Please tell us by voting in our poll.

In the second half of the show, we’ll ask what needs to change. Is it time to end the policy of isolation? How can we best encourage moderation? What’s in the interests of Western democracies? And, most important, what is most likely to help the Afghan people? I expect it to be a difficult conversation during which we have to confront some hard truths—and that’s precisely why it is worth having.

The show will be available to watch from 6pm London time (1pm in New York) on Thursday. We’ll be reviewing the results of this week’s poll during the discussion, as well as answering some of your questions. Please tell us what you want to know by using the Q&A feature on the episode page. And if you have feedback or suggestions for future episodes, please write to me at insider@economist.com.
Is it time to talk to the Taliban?
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A Silver Lining in Afghanistan

August 12, 2026

By Tricia Bacon and Daniel Byman

The Atlantic
August 12, 2026

Five years ago, the United States was completing its chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan when the terrorist group known as the Islamic State Khorasan Province carried out one last murderous strike. ISKP’s suicide attack on the Kabul International Airport killed 13 U.S. service members and about 170 desperate Afghan civilians trying to flee the Taliban’s oppressive rule.

The carnage was a final reminder of what the American military had been doing in Afghanistan to begin with. An Afghanistan ruled by the Taliban, American policy makers feared, would become a haven for terrorists, as it was before the U.S. invasion in 2001. In the 1990s, the Taliban had offered sanctuary to al-Qaeda and like-minded networks, allowing them to train thousands of fighters and plot devastating assaults, including the 1998 embassy bombings, the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, and 9/11. For 20 years, concerns that such attacks might resume kept the U.S. fighting a war that its officials knew they were losing. In April 2021, William Burns, President Biden’s CIA director, warned that pulling out troops would create a “significant risk” of an al-Qaeda resurgence. When Biden withdrew four months later, experts claimed that he had given terrorists a leg up.

Today these fears look overblown. Under Taliban rule, Afghanistan has not become the global terrorist hub it once was. Al-Qaeda, which remains far weaker today than in 2001, hasn’t carried out an attack from Afghanistan on the U.S. or Europe since the withdrawal. Meanwhile, the Taliban has turned into a valuable—though deeply flawed—counterterrorism partner to the U.S., overturning the expectations of analysts who believed the group would revert to being a major sponsor of global terror.

The past five years have confirmed that staying in Afghanistan was folly. But they have also demonstrated a truth that isn’t nearly as accepted: Curbing terrorism often requires working with old enemies.

The Taliban is no friend to the United States. The group brutalizes the Afghan people, particularly women, and it continues to shelter militants such as al-Qaeda, which has begun to train more members in Afghanistan since the withdrawal. But unlike in the 1990s, the Taliban provides far less support to terrorists, and, perhaps more important, al-Qaeda poses a much smaller threat.

Before the withdrawal, the U.S. launched drone strikes that killed many of al-Qaeda’s senior leaders, and orchestrated an intelligence campaign that shut down al-Qaeda cells around the world. The group never fully recovered. In 2022, another American drone strike killed al-Qaeda’s head, Ayman al-Zawahiri, proving that the U.S. can undercut the group even without a presence in Afghanistan. Al-Qaeda has still not named a replacement for al-Zawahiri, and its de facto leader, Saif al-Adel, is hiding in Iran. The Taliban is reportedly reluctant to allow al-Adel into Afghanistan, an apparent recognition that providing too much support to al-Qaeda could jeopardize its own interests.

The strongest parts of al-Qaeda are no longer in Afghanistan but in Africa, and they present fewer risks: Local branches, such as JNIM in West Africa and al-Shabaab in Somalia, are primarily focused on regional goals instead of global terrorism. Similarly, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, another recipient of Taliban support, has concentrated its attacks on Pakistan rather than on international targets. In 2010, the group attempted to detonate a car bomb in Times Square; in 2020, it signaled that it wouldn’t attack America again—and no evidence has emerged since then that the organization has changed its mind.

As al-Qaeda has dwindled, ISKP has grown into the biggest terrorist threat in Afghanistan. The group is suspected of carrying out deadly attacks in Iran, Pakistan, Russia, and Turkey. It has also plotted campaigns in Europe and inspired plots in the United States. But these have failed or been disrupted, and the Taliban has helped the U.S. thwart ISKP’s ambitions.

ISKP has challenged the Taliban’s religious legitimacy, targeted its leaders, and recruited some of its rank and file. In response, the Taliban has arrested and killed ISKP fighters and leaders. At times, though, the Taliban has taken a more conciliatory approach—for example, persuading ISKP members to surrender in exchange for lenient treatment. Because they now share a common enemy, the U.S. and the Taliban have found opportunities to advance each other’s interests. Indeed, the White House’s counterterrorism chief has described the Taliban as “moderately cooperative counterterrorism partners.” Unlike the collapsed Afghan republic government, the Taliban controls the entire country and has networks everywhere, which Washington has used to its advantage. Thanks to its strong intelligence in the region, America has been able to warn Iran and Russia about the risk of ISKP attacks and to assist European states in disrupting plots.

Afghanistan isn’t the only place where the U.S. has cooperated with former adversaries. In Syria, the jihadist turned head of state Ahmed al-Sharaa works with the U.S. to battle the Islamic State and Hezbollah. America has also cooperated with the Syrian Democratic Forces, even though it has a close relationship with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, an internationally designated terrorist group that targets Turkey.

America’s relationships with unsavory actors can backfire: In Somalia, the U.S. supported warlords to fight al-Shabaab, but their abuses only increased support for the terrorist group. The Taliban’s U.S.-assisted campaign against ISKP has also had serious drawbacks. To prevent defections to ISKP, the Taliban has become even more repressive. In addition, the clampdown on ISKP’s operations in Afghanistan seems to have encouraged the group to turn to international terrorism, because it was no longer as effective locally.

Cooperating with repressive regimes or onetime enemies will always incur costs, both moral and strategic. The job of U.S. policy makers is to constantly assess whether the costs outweigh the security gains that these partnerships can offer, not only to the U.S. but to societies around the world. One of the clearest foreign-policy lessons of the past five years is simple, if uncomfortable: The best counterterrorism option is sometimes the least bad one.

A Silver Lining in Afghanistan
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Afghanistan’s Unhappy Anniversary

August 12, 2026

By Katrin Bennhold

I’m the host of The World.

The New York Times

Five years into their hard-line rule, the Taliban find themselves in crisis at home and abroad.

Afghanistan has a track record of defeating superpowers. The mujahedeen humbled the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and five years ago the Taliban pushed out the United States.

But can Afghanistan’s rulers overcome the discontent of their own people?

With the country on the verge of another all-out war, this time with Pakistan, that is less than certain. Today, my colleague Elian Peltier explains why all the ingredients for things to spiral out of control are there.

By Elian Peltier

On what could have been a triumphant anniversary for the group, the Taliban find themselves in crisis at home and abroad.

They face a conflict just short of open war with neighboring Pakistan. They’re dealing with fresh waves of attacks from armed groups who want to topple them. Add to that mass unemployment, near-total international isolation and growing domestic discontent, and it all amounts to the most serious threats the Taliban have encountered since their victory in 2021.

It’s too early to tell whether all this will escalate in a way that could threaten the regime’s survival. But it has cracked the thin veneer of security and stability that the Taliban herald as their primary achievement since taking over — and their primary selling point to the world.

The Taliban are holding Afghan society in a chokehold that spares no one. Girls and women face restrictions to a degree unseen anywhere else in the world. Religious minorities are witnessing the forced closure of their places of worship. Anyone who voices criticism is repressed.

That grip on power over a country of nearly 45 million people seems immovable. The Taliban collect taxes and are pretty good at it. They are building roads, dams and canals. European countries are desperate to work with them to deport Afghan migrants and asylum seekers. And when someone shuts the door on them, as Pakistan did when it closed its border last year, they open new ones: Afghanistan has increasingly relied on trade with Iran, India and Central Asian states like Uzbekistan.

And yet the signs of trouble that have appeared in recent months are impossible to ignore.

An underequipped Afghan Army waits nervously at the border with Pakistan. Once a sponsor of the Taliban, Pakistan has launched dozens of airstrikes on Afghanistan in recent months; killed 500 civilians since October, according to the United Nations; and threatened to go all in against the Taliban regime, which it accuses of harboring militants who are staging attacks on Pakistani territory.

The mistrust goes both ways: The Taliban have accused Pakistan of supporting the armed groups that have attacked Taliban outposts in Afghanistan’s northeastern province of Badakhshan and are gearing up for a sustained offensive.

Whether, or to what extent, Pakistan is actively supporting anti-Taliban groups is not clear, but suspicions are high enough that a senior Western diplomat with decades of experience working on Afghanistan told me this summer, “This region doesn’t need another proxy war.”

The picture on the domestic front is also grim. The Taliban are struggling to deal with a cascade of humanitarian and economic crises. Nearly four million Afghans have been forcibly returned from Iran and Pakistan since January 2025 — one of the world’s largest episodes of reverse migration in decades. Aid cuts have plunged millions into deeper food insecurity. And UNESCO says the Taliban have deprived 2.4 million Afghan girls of a secondary education — the equivalent of all school-age girls in New York, Mexico City and Moscow combined, forced to stay home indefinitely.

A society can withstand only so much, even under the tightest of grips. At a rare protest in June, demonstrators chanted “Work, education, freedom,” similar to what their Iranian neighbors chanted in 2022. And the leader of a large religious minority warned the Taliban in May: Don’t squeeze Afghan society too much, or it will explode.

The potential to spiral?

The Taliban know the world wants a stable Afghanistan — one that isn’t a source of refugees, opium or terrorism.

The Taliban claim the country no longer poses a security threat to the region or the West. They say that they have cracked down on the Islamic State, and that they want peaceful relations based on trade and diplomacy, including with the U.S.

All of this may have some truth to it. The Taliban don’t want their various crises to spiral. But it also might not be entirely up to them.

All the ingredients for things to get out of control in Afghanistan again are here, analysts say: Growing animosity toward Pakistan and a vast population of unemployed young Afghans are fertile ground for radicalization, especially as economic opportunities are nearly nonexistent. Under the Taliban, Afghanistan is, once again, a pariah state, with barely any allies.

As a foreign military official in Afghanistan put it, the country is no longer the hub for jihadism that it used to be — but it has everything it needs to become one again.

The past five years have brought some predictability and an end to almost two decades of fighting, which many Afghans have welcomed, despite the immense hardship and repression. But Afghanistan remains shattered, and what always looked like a fragile peace is already at risk.

Afghanistan’s Unhappy Anniversary
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UNAMA Says Two Afghan Staff Members Detained by Intelligence Officials in Herat

August 12, 2026
Khaama Press

Two Afghan male staff members of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) were detained by officials of the de facto General Directorate of Intelligence in Herat, the U.N. mission said.

In a statement, UNAMA said the two staff members were detained on Sunday, August 9, but that the mission had not been informed of any charges against them or been allowed to meet with them.

“We confirm that two Afghan UNAMA male staff members were detained by officials of the de facto General Directorate of Intelligence on Sunday, 9 August in Herat,” the mission said.

“UNAMA has not been informed of the charges against them, nor have we been permitted to see them,” it added.

UNAMA called on the de facto authorities to respect the privileges and immunities granted to the United Nations and its officials under international law.

“We call on the de facto authorities to ensure compliance with the privileges and immunities of the United Nations and its officials,” UNAMA said.

The U.N. mission did not provide further details about the circumstances of the detentions, including where the two staff members were being held or whether they remained in custody.

The detentions come amid continuing concerns over the operating environment for international organizations and humanitarian personnel in Afghanistan. The United Nations has repeatedly stressed the need for its personnel to be able to carry out their work safely and independently.

UNAMA has maintained a presence in Afghanistan since 2002 and continues to support humanitarian, human rights and political efforts in the country. Its personnel operate under privileges and immunities intended to protect the independence of the United Nations and its officials.

This comes amid a sharp decline in international aid to Afghanistan, leaving millions facing growing difficulties in accessing adequate housing, food and essential healthcare services.

UNAMA Says Two Afghan Staff Members Detained by Intelligence Officials in Herat
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‘We are still here’: a day in the life of 12 Afghan women

August 12, 2026

The Guardian

Tuesday, 11 August 2026

In the five years since the Taliban’s return to power, the walls have been closing in on the women and girls of Afghanistan.

As the regime has tightened its grip, it has banned girls from education after the age of 12, ejected many women from the workplace and created legal frameworks for child marriage and husbands beating their wives. Taliban rule has ushered in a new era of women being whipped for minor infractions and constant inspections by ‘vice and morality’ officials, with men compelled to become enforcers in their own homes. Even the borders of the online world have been creeping inward, with a new spate of smartphone bans and internet restrictions.

Marking the grim anniversary, a dozen women and girls have, at great risk to their safety, documented their lives for the world to see

A composite of an Afghan woman in a blue veil

The soldier stripped of her uniform

Herat province
Every day, I wake up to the silence of dawn. I feel as though I am still holding my weapon. I lie on my bed for a few moments, taking deep breaths. With every awakening, I make a promise to myself: if my husband manages to return home safely today, I will thank God even more.

My name is Parasto*, and I live in Herat. For six years I served here as a soldier. Within a few days of taking the city, the first thing the Taliban did to me and my female colleagues was hold a meeting and demand that we hand over our uniforms. When they took that uniform, I felt as though I had lost something grand that belonged to me; it was a profound pain.

Because my husband and I served with the previous government, the Taliban have summoned him several times to question him about how many Taliban he killed, or how many I killed. We have been threatened with death many times, through phone calls and messages. In the early days, many of my colleagues fled. The Taliban arrested two women whose names I do not wish to mention, and nothing is known of their fate to this day. Where are they? Are they alive or not? We tried to smuggle ourselves over the border to Iran, but were turned back by border guards. Today, we still keep our bags packed and waiting, in case we have to flee.

Now, my morning begins with chores. I wake, light the fire, make breakfast, prepare my children for school and my husband so that he can search for a day’s work. I stand by the house gate until they leave. After the gate closes, the house sinks back into silence. I pull the curtains closed again so no one knows who lives here.

I spend the days alone in the heat of this house. Sometimes, to keep my mind off the past, I sit behind the sewing machine, thread the needle, stitch the fabric slowly. It is a way to pass long hours of loneliness. The weather is also getting hotter every day, as if fire is raining from the sky.

At night, before my eyes close, I think of the days when I would prepare myself for the next day’s shift.

I had so many dreams of serving this country more, but the times do not allow me to. I still dream that I am wearing my uniform and going to duty. When I wake up, it takes a few moments to realise that none of it exists any more.

As told to Goharshad

A collage featuring a cup of coffee and the cutout silhouette of a woman against a brick wall
The undercover journalist

Northern provinces
The fear of being exposed is constant. Every time someone knocks on our gate, I panic. Whenever I hear the sound, I immediately hide my laptop under my mattress because of what is held on its screen.

I am an undercover journalist in one of Afghanistan’s northern provinces, working under an alias. My writing days unfold in a 12-sq-metre room, with a small desk, a mobile phone and a laptop.

Coffee is my therapy. Every morning, as soon as I get out of bed, the first thing I reach for is a cup of coffee. I pick up my phone and check the latest news in Afghanistan. I open my pseudonymous email account to see what assignment my editor has left.

I have already lived through two house searches by Taliban officers. Since then, every knock at the gate fills me with dread. What if it is the Taliban? What if they enter the house while I am working on a report about a killing, interviewing a transgender person or writing the account of a survivor of violence? A thousand scenarios race through my mind and fear consumes me.

The job of a journalist is to meet people and record their stories – but every time I do so, it holds the risk that I could be betrayed. Last week, I went to interview a woman with a disability who had experienced domestic violence. She lived on the outskirts of the city, so a friend accompanied me. To reach her house, I had to change taxis twice. The trip was filled with anxiety because she lived in an area where restrictions are especially severe: women wear burqas, and it is unacceptable for a woman to move around without a male guardian.

We walked along dusty alleyways, winding through countless narrow turns. It was a small, impoverished house with barely any light. As I spoke to her, the entire time I was terrified. I had never met her before; she had only been introduced to me through someone I trusted. I did not know what kind of place I was walking into or whether I could trust the situation.

When I returned, I told my editor that we should not publish yet. I feared that, after publication, the Taliban could use the city’s expanding network of security cameras to trace my movements and identify her, or me. This is the reality of working under Taliban rule: reporting in a near-total suppression of press freedom is extraordinarily difficult.

By Sophia Malek

A woman preparing dough in a rudimentary hut

The neighbourhood baker

Kabul
Every day, when most people are still asleep, my sister Marzia and I wake at 4am. We light the oven. This is how our day begins.

My name is Fatema*. I am 32 years old and a mother of six: four sons and two daughters. Me and Marzia, who herself has eight children, run a small home bakery in a corner of Kabul.

Women from all over come to us with dough they have prepared the night before, asking us to bake their bread. This work has been our only stable source of income during these five difficult years.

My eyebrows and eyelashes have disappeared because of constant exposure to the heat of the fire. My eyes burn. My knees ache at night, and I no longer feel the burns on my hands. Work is good, but I never wanted such a hard life and such difficult work for my daughters.

I pray my morning prayer while the oven is heating up. After the prayer, women begin arriving one by one. Some come from distant neighbourhoods, carrying with them fear and worry. They say: “The Taliban were in such and such alley today.” Sometimes they arrive silently, hand over their dough and wait.

We bake the bread, and they return home with fresh loaves.

As I work, I always remember my mother. She taught my sister and me the art of breadmaking, and was a wise woman. She encouraged me to attend school so I could learn the Qur’an, and she taught me sewing, baking and caring for my children. All these skills have helped me survive. I still light the oven the way my mother taught me. But the wood, which used to cost 60 afghanis per bundle (70p), has risen to 110 afghanis (£1.25). Now, we use almond shells as fuel – they’re cheaper, but their bitter smell stays with me until the end of the day. We charge six afghanis for each batch of bread. On good days, we might earn about 1,000 afghanis (£11), but usually we earn half of that. My family of eight and Marzia’s family of 10 survive on this.

My eldest daughter is now 12, and my youngest is eight. Beyond how difficult the work itself is, my biggest worry is that I cannot do anything for their education. I don’t have enough income to send them abroad to study, and I have no hope that conditions inside Afghanistan will improve soon. I wanted my daughters to study and have a more informed and comfortable life. What if they end up like me? A difficult life with very limited choices.

By mid-morning, I can take a break, take off my work clothes, wash my hands and face, eat breakfast and rest a while. In the afternoon, I light the oven again, and the work continues until 7pm.

When women come and share stories about their lives, I realise that the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan have never been easy. With the arrival of the Taliban, they have become a living hell.

As told to Tarana Mohammadi

A young afghan woman writing in a notebook

The 12-year-old blogger

Undisclosed
I wake up to the sound of my parents’ laughter. In the living room, my mother spreads out her flower-patterned tablecloth and prepares breakfast. For me, she makes a boiled egg because she knows I love them. I am 12 years old, preparing for my sixth-grade exams – the last I will be allowed to take.

After breakfast, my sisters and I go to our room, where my older sister gets lost in old books and notebooks, studying and writing. She dreamed of becoming a writer whose books would be read around the world. But the Taliban buried that dream inside her. My other sister reached 10th grade before she had to leave. Now she sits for hours, searching social media for scholarships and journalism training programmes.

I know that soon the fate that came to my sisters will come for me. I will also remain trapped in this room, our forced refuge for years. Even at night we do not dare pull back the curtains for fresh air, fearing the Taliban or suspicious neighbours. What if someone says: “Three young girls live in this house and move around freely inside it”?

On the shelf where we keep our clothes, there is no colour left except black. I put on my black dress, scarf, mask and chador. I must wear my chador, even in this scorching heat – two classmates were arrested and expelled from school for failing to wear it correctly.

Finally, I reach the school gate, surrounded by girls. The teacher enters the classroom and places a preparatory exam paper in front of us. But I stare at the exam paper and ask myself: what should I write? What future am I studying for, when that path no longer exists?

Every day after school, I go straight to that same room and record my blog. I talk about life, recite poetry and speak about girls whose books have remained closed for years, women prevented from living an ordinary life. My mother brings her phone to record me. I receive encouraging messages from women and girls who relate to my words. But whenever I publish a video, relatives come to our home and fill my father’s ears with criticism. They say: “Your daughter has grown up. The honour and dignity of the family will be destroyed. Why is she blogging? Why is she speaking out against the Taliban?”

Every time I hear this, I feel like more walls are being built around my life. One greater fear stays with me: that someone might reveal my identity and location to the Taliban. Today, perhaps the Taliban see my videos and do not know who the voice behind them is. But what happens if they find me?

Sometimes I imagine that if one day I can return to seventh grade, if I can place my books on a desk again and hold my pen without fear, the first thing I will write will be the story of these days. I am a 12-year-old girl. Hear our voices, before our silent rooms become filled with buried dreams. We are still here.

As told to Awa Nikyar

A composite featuring a closeup of a sewing machine and fabric

The polio survivor who became a master tailor

Undisclosed
Twenty-five years ago, when I was 10, I contracted polio. Because we were a poor family living through war in a remote village, we had no access to doctors or vaccines. My legs bent at the knees, and walking was difficult. My body and height did not grow like those of average people.

As a child, struggling with the muscle pain and paralysis, I realised my life would be different from other people’s. I saw my pace in this world was slow, and that I was viewed as a burden. The pain I saw in my mother’s eyes made me realise how difficult my life was going to be. She never said it out loud, but I read it in her gaze.

To escape the pain in my mind and body, I would take a needle and plastic scraps to make clothes for dolls. Gradually, I won my mother’s trust and she let me hand-sew a dress for her. Her faint smile was a stamp of approval. I still remember the first proper garment I ever sewed: a white cotton shirt and trousers for my father. He made my heart swell with joy, saying: “Bravo, my daughter!”

This talent was a gift from the creator: I had never had a teacher, but I found I could look at anything, replicate its pattern and sew it. One day, one of my sisters showed me a dress by a skilled tailor and asked if I could make one like it. When it was done, seeing I could work like a master tailor, she promised to buy me a sewing machine – and she kept her promise.

From that day on, my reputation spread by word of mouth, and clients began coming from more and more distant villages.

When clients arrive, their first look is often searching and sceptical. They ask: “Is the tailor here?” I know exactly what they are thinking. When I tell them it is me, they place their orders with looks of disbelief and curiosity. When they see me using a pen and paper to write down measurements, they ask: “How are you literate?” They have no idea how hard I worked to teach myself to read. I became a student of my own students; in exchange for teaching them tailoring, I had them teach me writing.

I sometimes have so many orders that I can earn 6-7,000 afghani (£68-80) a month, helping to support the family. Since my mother died and my father lost his sight due to old age, I run the household myself. I keep thanking God for giving me the strength to do so. Despite my legs and skeleton being ravaged by polio, I have never looked down on myself. My art has ensured that people do not look at me with pity or condescension; instead, they look at me as their trusted tailor.

As told to Hura Omar

A composite of cut-out shapes of people and an unidentified woman wearing a hijab

The aspiring novelist

Balkh province
If you want to know me, do not start with my name, but with my room’s window. Every morning, before the city fully wakes up, I sit in front of it. The road in front of me is just an ordinary street, but to me it is filled with people, and each has a story that no one has yet written. An old man who slowly drags his cane across the asphalt; a girl who clutches her bag tightly to her chest and walks briskly; a child chasing his ball … Sometimes, before I write the first sentence, I just watch them for a few minutes.

I am Mahtab*. I am 23 years old and from Balkh province, and I am writing a novel.

I began writing on my own, but now I take online classes as well. One by one, students appear onscreen. Some could be my older sister or even my mother. Every time I see their faces, I think how remarkable it is: here, where the paths to learning grow narrower every day, there are still people who have not given up. Sometimes, the internet disconnects, sometimes the power goes out, but none of this stops the class.

Let me tell you about last week: I was missing going to the bookshop, so I adjusted my shawl and set off. The little bell above the door chimed as it opened, and the smell of paper and new books filled the shop. The bookseller smiled and said: “I haven’t seen you in a long time.” I went straight to the fiction shelf. My fingers slid over the spines of the books, and I was holding one in my hand when, through the glass, a few men in official attire passed by. Instinctively, I held my breath.

Through the glass, I saw girls passing the shop: one holding her little sister’s hand; one with a book hidden beneath her shawl; another walking so fast, as if she wanted to get away from the street’s gaze. When I stepped out, I held the book tight against my chest. In a time when so much can be taken from a person, the dream of reading, writing and creating cannot be stolen unless one gives it up. For me, writing is not just putting words together; it is a way to preserve what is being lost: dreams, memories, the voices of people who are still hopeful. Perhaps, one day, someone will read these writings and know there were people who, despite all the walls, still kept a window open to the future.

When night falls, I sit behind the same window again. I may not be able to change the pain of this city, but I can remember it, write it down and not let it be lost in silence.

As told to Sofia Malik

a composite of bricks being made by a woman and a cow being fed

The cleaner and brickmaker

Jawzjan province
My husband used to be the breadwinner in our family. But in 2021, he was in injured in a traffic accident, leaving him unable to stand on his feet or work. From that moment, the responsibility of providing for the family fell on my shoulders.

My name is Leilma*. I am 33 years old. I am originally from Faryab province, but I now live in Jawzjan. I am the mother of four children – three daughters and one son.

Every day, I wake up before sunrise, pray and begin my household chores. I prepare breakfast for my children and husband, send my children to school, prepare food for our cow and goats and feed them, then tie them under the shade of trees so they can be protected from the scorching sun.

Then, I head to the hotel where I work as a waitress and cleaner. From 6.30am until 8 or 9pm, I work continuously.

On days when there are wedding ceremonies at the hotel, I arrive early, arrange tables and chairs, and serve guests food. Then I clean every part of the hotel with brushes, mops and brooms, and arrange the tables and chairs again. I wash the tablecloths, chair covers and dining sheets, and dry them on the hotel roof. Once they are dry, I collect them, spread them back on the tables and chairs and return home.

For all this work, I earn only 200 afghanis (£2) a day. Although this income is very little and does not cover all our needs, I have no choice but to continue. My children’s hopes are tied to my tired hands.

I live with my husband and four children in a very small house with only one room. To be able to build at least one more room, I make raw bricks whenever I have free time.

My brother used to do this work so I know how bricks are made: preparing the soil, mixing it with water to make mud. I spend hours pressing and kneading the mud with my feet until it is ready. After that, using a brick-making mould, I shape the raw bricks from the mud and leave them under the sun to dry.

Sometimes, there is a wedding ceremony at the hotel while the mud for making bricks is also ready at home, so I cover the mud with plastic and go to the hotel. When I return home at night, I start making bricks again.

My neighbours tell me that if I continue putting so much pressure on myself, I will collapse. But I do not know any other way. My children are all still young, and I cannot bring myself to send them to work.

I tell myself: I did not have the chance to study and became a cleaner; let them study and become educated.

As told to Simin Daneshjo

The teacher at a girls’ school

Day Kundi province
My day begins at four in the morning. After waking, I pray and read the Qur’an until the sky begins to brighten. Then I pick up empty water containers and walk to the nearby spring to collect fresh water.

I have breakfast with my son – tea, sugar and tandoori bread. We live in a remote village in Day Kundi province, but unlike many other villagers, our table is not filled with eggs or cheeses. My name is Sediqa*. I am 41 years old, and I have been teaching at my village’s girls’ school for 18 years. I studied at this same school. After the fall of the previous Taliban regime, when Hamid Karzai came to power in 2002 and girls’ schools reopened, I was among the first to return – although I was over 20 years old at the time, I started my education from first grade. Eventually, I became a teacher.

I married a man who promised to support my work and education, because I hoped to build an independent life. But after my son was born, he failed to support me, did not allow me to study at university and opposed my going to work. Then, when the government collapsed and the Taliban took power, my husband left Afghanistan. My son and I were displaced, moving from one person’s home to another. The house I built through years of hardship and with the money I earned from teaching was taken away from me by his family. We eventually settled in a mud house near the school.

In the morning, I prepare dough and go to an area among the trees near my house to gather firewood. I light the clay oven and bake our bread, then leave for school with my son. We each take separate mountain paths and walk to our schools alone. My son walks an hour on foot while my journey takes 45 minutes.

Eighteen years ago, many girls and I gathered at this school under a single tent. There were no professional teachers, our school had no building and the tent was unbearable in the heat and cold – yet we gathered beneath that roof with great enthusiasm and a deep desire to learn.

Today, our school has a building, and classrooms with desks and chairs. But our girls can no longer study beyond sixth grade. The school uniform has been replaced with large black prayer garments, chador namaz, which education officials come to inspect. The youngest girls are just six years old. Despite their age and the long distances they travel, they must carry these heavy garments through the difficult journey, enduring the heat and cold.

I teach first grade, and my day ends with the happy laughter of these young girls. Girls who are starting school for the first time are happy, energetic and full of dreams. Being around them gives me a sense of joy.

As told to Nahid Naji

Cutout of an afghan woman, with notebooks and tuk-tuks

The student locked inside and losing hope

Nangarhar province
Sometimes, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror during the day and see the colour of my face and my hair, I fall silent. I see how much I have truly changed over these past few years. My skin has become pale and lifeless, as if I am fading away; the dark circles under my eyes look frightening. Sometimes, I think the girl I see in the mirror is not me.

My name is Leima*. I am 24 years old, and I was studying computer science at a private university in Nangarhar when the Taliban announced the closure of universities. I was in my room, working on a course project. It was 9pm when I finished studying and saw the news on my phone.

I fell into a state of shock. When my mother and sisters saw me they became silent. They had wanted to hide the news from me, but I already knew. For days, my family and relatives tried to reassure me that the universities would reopen.

When the universities stayed shut, I was left hopeless. My father – who has always supported our education – told me not to worry, that he would find every possible way for me to continue my studies. Eventually, he decided that we should leave Afghanistan and go to Pakistan or Turkey so I could resume my education. But because my younger brother has a physical disability and is paralysed, we were unable to leave.

Now, life has reached a point where no ordinary day is truly ordinary. My mind is so filled with thoughts and worries that even when I’m cooking, tears fall from my eyes without me realising.

This morning I woke up at 2am, recited prayers and sat on my prayer mat, crying. Every night, I ask God to make everything right. In the darkness, I go into the courtyard and look at the silent sky, the moon and the stars. It gives me a sense of comfort. I tell myself that everything will change one day.

There was a time when I would dress up every day. I would lovingly dye and style my hair, apply my favourite bright lipstick, listen to my favourite music at full volume and dance happily in my room. This morning, after brushing my teeth, I wanted to comb my hair. But my worries are making it fall out: so much hair gathered on the brush that I felt as if every strand had died.

As I sat there, my eyes fell on my old perfumes sitting beside the mirror. I picked one up and sprayed it on myself; for a moment, my mood changed. I felt like the person I used to be years ago.

As told to Hosai Ismail Khan

Composite of prosthetic legs and medical apparatus for people with broken or injured legs

The prosthetist helping women to walk

Faryab province
My workday revolves around plaster, moulds, plastic prosthetics, scissors, screws, rubber, glue and other tools.

My name is Nazanin*. I am 42 years old and the mother of four children – two daughters and two sons. For the past 21 years, I have worked as a technician in a hospital, making orthopaedic assistive devices, casts and plastic prosthetic limbs for women and children with physical disabilities.

I begin each day with prayer, then wake my two sons, who leave for their classes at 6am. My younger daughter is in second grade, so I take her to school in my rickshaw. My older daughter, however, is 13 and no longer allowed to attend school.

Now, she stays home alone. She does all the housework, prepares meals for her father and siblings. She has been at home for two years, and it breaks my heart. No one truly understands a mother’s fear. Every time I close the gate behind me, it feels as though my soul remains on the other side with my daughter.

I arrive at work at 8am and check how many orders we have. I produce several casts or artificial limbs most days.

I think about my daughter as I work and wonder what she is doing. How long can she keep herself busy with housework? How much television can she watch? I worry that she might harm herself. I worry that she might lose hope.

Then I tell myself that there are women who need me – who dream of walking independently and doing everyday tasks on their own. One young woman I worked with was the mother of seven children. Her husband was a farmer and they lived in a remote mountainous district. Before receiving the prosthesis, she had to crawl to do her daily tasks.

Now, she can walk powerfully on those uneven fields. Later, when she visited us to have her prosthetic leg repaired, she told us with great happiness: “I went to the market – I saw the market up close. I work on my land now, and I no longer think about the fact that I once did not have a leg.”

In the evening, when my husband returns from work, he comforts me about our daughter. He says: “Are you anxious? Well, this is something that has happened to all girls.” He takes our daughters out for a walk and buys them ice-cream or something small. He says: “At least let their faces light up a little.”

As told to Tomiris Tamga

A closeup of dental equipment against the cutout shape of an afghan woman

The dental assistant who dreamed of being a surgeon

Jawzjan province
Getting to my place of work is never easy. On my way, I pass several mosques and a Taliban-run religious school. When the young men come out, the way they look at me sometimes makes me fearful. Every time I walk that route, I wonder whether I could end up like Farkhunda – a young woman killed by a mob for no reason. The men’s stares reveal how deeply they resent women leaving their homes.

My name is Marwa*. I am 23 years old, and once I dreamed of being a brain surgeon. When women were banned from universities, I found I could study an online course in dental prosthetics. Today, I work as a dental assistant in a small private clinic run by a friend of my father’s.

When I arrive at the clinic, I push fear aside and focus on my work. Taliban officials and soldiers all come to the clinic. One commander came to have a tooth extracted and asked the dentist about the anaesthetic injection. The soldier with him laughed and said: “Doctor, don’t numb the commander. Our commander has spilled so much blood – let him lose a little blood from his tooth as well.”

Hearing that, I wondered how many innocent people this man had helped kill, how many families he had left without loved ones, how many women and children had suffered because of him. Every moment, I worried that he might suddenly become angry.

Officials from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice visit the clinic to carry out inspections. They always ask: “Who is this young woman’s guardian and why is she working alone?” Every time, I worry they might shut down the clinic or create problems for us. Whenever they arrive, I hide so they do not see me.

This is not the future I imagined for myself. When I was 17 and began preparing for Afghanistan’s national university entrance exam, I told myself I would earn the highest score in my province. I had dreamed of becoming a doctor, but by the time exam results were announced, the political system had changed and I wasn’t able to pursue that. Once, a man who had been my teacher came in for treatment. When he saw me, he said: “You are capable of much more than being a nurse or an assistant. If circumstances had been different, you could have become a better doctor than many practising today.” His kind words meant a great deal.

There are months when I feel hopeless. But then, a small sense of hope returns. Maybe the circumstances are not right today, but no one knows what tomorrow will bring. Some girls have lost hope and are searching for a refuge in life – they think if they get married, they can find that refuge in their husbands. But I want to be my own refuge.

As told to Atousa Azar

A composite of an unidentified afghan woman hugging a child along images of rural life in afghanistan

The teacher who fears her students will be married off

Samangan province
People often say that the beginning of the week starts with motivation and energy, but since the day Afghanistan fell to the Taliban and my studies were left unfinished, I have had no motivation to live. Morning and evening, day and night, every day of the week feels the same: dark and heavy.

My name is Fatana*. I am 25 years old and live in one of Afghanistan’s northern provinces. When the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan, I was a third-year student of law and political science, living in a government-run dormitory. Since then, I have been prevented from continuing my education. My six-year-old sister and I get into a rickshaw and go to school – a private school where I have worked as a teacher for nearly two years and earn a monthly salary of 4,000 afghanis (£45). Alongside teaching, I try to encourage my students. I tell them that to achieve success, they often have to work several times harder than boys.

One of my students lost her father to cancer last year, and her family is struggling financially. She is a quiet and sorrowful girl who often keeps to herself. In addition to her regular lessons, I teach her English for one hour every day through WhatsApp. Sometimes, I cannot escape worrying about her future. I fear that poverty and family pressure could force her into child marriage – a fate that still shapes the lives of many children.

The most painful part of my work at the school is seeing my students graduate from sixth grade. Their sad and hopeless faces on their final days are unbearable for me. Every time I think about those girls, and wonder what conditions they are living in today, my heart aches. I ask myself: how many of them are still holding on to their dreams of education? How many have been forced into marriages they did not choose?

As told to Raha Malik

* Names have been changed

 This report is a collaboration with Zan Times, a collective of journalists inside Afghanistan who write under pen names for their own safety

‘We are still here’: a day in the life of 12 Afghan women
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Afghanistan: UN tells Taliban to open up on abuses committed by security forces

August 12, 2026
UN staff in Afghanistan observe a minute of silence as the UN flag is lowered to half-mast at the Mission Headquarters.
UN Photo/Tilak Pokharel Headquarters of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) in Kabul.

Five years into Taliban rule, Afghans still have almost no way of knowing whether soldiers, police and morality officers who abuse their power ever face consequences – and that secrecy is corroding trust in the State, the UN said Monday.

Key points

  • The Taliban have taken steps to promote discipline and oversight according to a new report by the UN mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA)
  • However, these steps have lack sufficient transparency on oversight and accountability measures, for such institutions as the Supreme Court
  • UNAMA recommendations include strengthening accountability by clarifying the rules governing the use of force, arrest, detention, searches and crowd policing

Five years after the Taliban seized power, such grave concerns as human rights violations, detention and discrimination against women and girls continue to be consistently raised by UN agencies and partners, from UN Women to the Security Council.

Since the takeover, UNAMA has monitored the situation of governance, rule of law, security and human rights across Afghanistan, including developments in domestic law, the criminal justice system and respect for victims’ rights.

UNAMA reports have already highlighted a significant lack of public information on the status of investigations or actions to hold perpetrators of human rights violations to account.

Insufficient transparency

While de facto authorities have taken some positive steps, there has not been enough transparency on oversight and accountability measures, the report highlights.

The findings examined bodies such as the so-called Security and Filtration Commission and the Ministry of Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which were set up according to the Taliban’s strict interpretation of Sharia Law, replacing the former democratic constitution.

“The limited amount of public information on complaints received, investigations conducted and disciplinary or judicial actions taken by relevant de facto bodies undermine confidence and weaken deterrence,” said Georgette Gagnon, Deputy Special Representative of the Secretary-General and head of UNAMA.

She said the suspension of the constitution had resulted in “a blanket annulment of all former [existing] laws”.

Unresolved complaints

In the report, UNAMA documented instances where the de facto authorities conducted arrests and investigations of reported misconduct of security personnel – some of which were referred to Taliban military courts.

At the same time, many complaints reportedly remain unresolved, the report found.

Elements which are discouraging people from coming forward include fear of reprisals, lack of trust in institutions and barriers, particularly for women who are subjected to multiple restrictions in their daily lives, the report found.

Accountability

Ms. Gagnon said visible and consistent accountability measures should ensure that rules are applied equally and to every person, including those in positions of authority.

“Improving accountability is a legal obligation of the de facto authorities and a necessary step towards improving governance and respect for human rights, which support Afghanistan’s stability and its compliance with international obligations as a basis for the country’s reintegration into the international community,” she said.

UNAMA recommended de facto authorities strengthen accountability across all security institutions by ensuring that clear rules, procedures and codes of conduct are in place, consistent with international standards.

This includes clarifying the rules governing the use of force, arrest, detention, searches and crowd policing, establishing clear standards of professional conduct and requiring all personnel to report misconduct, with commanders responsible for enforcing discipline.

Read the full report here.

 

Afghanistan: UN tells Taliban to open up on abuses committed by security forces
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