Afghanistan Marks Five Years of Taliban Rule Amid Severe Humanitarian and Rights Crises

As the Taliban marks five years since returning to power in Afghanistan, the nation faces a severe humanitarian crisis with over 21 million people needing aid and escalating restrictions on women and girls.

Key points

• Approximately 45 percent of the Afghan population requires humanitarian assistance, while international funding has fallen nearly 70 percent since 2022.
• Girls remain banned from secondary education past the sixth grade, affecting an estimated 2.4 million girls according to UNESCO.
• Recent decrees by the Taliban allow men to beat their wives under certain conditions and legitimize child marriage by removing the minimum marriage age.
• The ongoing economic collapse and steep aid cuts have left one in ten Afghan children acutely malnourished and forced hundreds of health facilities to close.

Why it matters

Five years after the Taliban's takeover, Afghanistan remains entrenched in one of the world's most acute human rights and humanitarian emergencies, characterized by widespread starvation and severe systemic restrictions on women and girls.