CIVICUS discusses women’s rights under Taliban rule with a member of the Afghan section of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF), a global membership-based feminist peacebuilding organisation. The interviewee has requested anonymity.

On 23 June, five years after the Taliban seized power, European Union (EU) officials held their first meeting with a Taliban delegation to discuss the deportation of rejected Afghan asylum seekers. Rights groups condemned the talks as legitimising the theocratic regime. The meeting followed a new Taliban decree that further tightens control over marriage and divorce.

Five years into Taliban rule, what’s the situation for women in Afghanistan?

Afghanistan is now governed under a system of gender apartheid. Girls are being denied employment and higher education. Women have been pushed out of economic, political and social life, confined to their homes or to prison. They are barred from civil society, with women’s organisations unable to register projects, as most applications are rejected.

Women without a male guardian, including widows and women with disabilities, face even harsher restrictions. They cannot leave their homes, travel between provinces or run a business. If Afghanistan continues on this path, it will become a country built only for men.

The new Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses has made it much harder for women to obtain a divorce – even in cases of forced or child marriage – including through khula, a form of divorce under Islamic law that’s initiated by a wife with her husband’s consent. This leaves women with even fewer ways to escape abusive husbands, at a time when economic hardship is pushing more families to force young girls into marriage, and domestic violence is rising.

Protection was already scarce. Family law has been almost entirely dismantled and replaced by Sharia-based codes the Taliban issue at their discretion. The new law tightens men’s control over women’s bodies, choices and lives, reducing them to a state of enslavement. Each time it seems conditions cannot get worse, the Taliban impose another measure that deepens women’s suffering.

How did Afghan women’s rights defenders respond to the EU’s first meeting with the Taliban?

The meeting came as shocking news for women’s rights defenders inside and outside Afghanistan. With Afghan women’s rights deteriorating under Taliban rule, it’s hard to understand why European and regional governments would deepen ties with them. It’s particularly troubling that governments with human rights and feminist foreign policies are sidelining Afghan women and handing the Taliban international platforms.

Together with others, we have documented the failings of Taliban laws, including the recently introduced Criminal Procedure Code and the Code on Judicial Separation of Spouses, drawing on consultations with women on the ground and religious scholars inside and outside Afghanistan. We shared our findings with EU governments to raise concerns about the meeting and used social media to voice our opposition.

As a result of this mobilisation, the EU said the meeting would focus only on asylum seekers. Yet political considerations must not take precedence over women’s rights. Taliban policies, including the latest marriage and divorce decree, should serve as a warning to the international community.

What should the EU and others do differently to support Afghan women’s rights?

The international community must listen to Afghan women, inside the country and in exile, and put them at the centre of policymaking. It should adopt a clear, united stance towards the Taliban to increase pressure and deliver meaningful results for the Afghan people.

Funding is essential. Women have been largely excluded from international funding, so support should be conditional on their gaining direct, meaningful access to resources. As a feminist organisation, we act as a bridge to women on the ground, but funding shortages limit our ability to reach them, support their mobilisation and raise awareness of their rights so they can resist harmful policies. Investment in women’s empowerment is vital to building a stronger society in which women can lead and contribute fully, and to preventing history repeating itself.

CIVICUS interviews a wide range of civil society activists, experts and leaders to gather diverse perspectives on civil society action and current issues for publication on its CIVICUS Lens platform. The views expressed in interviews are the interviewees’ and do not necessarily reflect those of CIVICUS. Publication does not imply endorsement of interviewees or the organisations they represent.