For many Afghan women, stepping outside the front door has become an increasingly rare event. New data from UN Women show that half of women in Afghanistan now leave their homes only once or twice a month, as Taliban-imposed restrictions continue to squeeze their freedom of movement and diminish their participation in public life.
The findings come as the Taliban prepare this week to mark the fifth anniversary of their return to power. UN Women noted that Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are barred from secondary school and women are prohibited from attending university.
“Half a decade after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, Afghanistan has systematically dismantled the rights of half its population, making it a global outlier with no parallel in the modern world,” UN Women said in a statement.
Saif-ul-Islam Khyber, spokesperson for the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, which enforces many of the government’s rules on women, told Reuters that reports of women not feeling safe to leave their homes were false and that women in the country have access to all their rights.
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“This is the first time in approximately 50 years that all citizens of Afghanistan feel that they are living in safety and security,” he said, adding that the situation of women’s rights in the country was moving in a “positive direction”.
The scale of the education ban remains vast. An estimated 2.4 million Afghan girls have been prevented from accessing secondary education since the Taliban regained power in 2021, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization said on Tuesday.
Seven in 10 women described their mental health as ‘bad’ or ‘very bad’
UN Women said Taliban authorities have issued more than 100 decrees aimed at women and girls since taking power, entrenching discrimination and intensifying what the agency described as the world’s most severe women’s rights crisis.
The Taliban say they respect women’s rights in line with their interpretation of Islamic law and Afghan culture.
But the UN agency’s survey data point to widespread fear and isolation. More than half of women surveyed said they leave home no more than twice a month, and nearly three-quarters reported feeling unsafe going out without a male guardian, known as a mahram.
UN Women said the limits on mobility and public life are also driving a deteriorating mental health picture.
Seven in 10 women described their mental health as “bad” or “very bad”, citing isolation, lost opportunities and limited access to support networks.
The agency also warned that newer decrees have further eroded legal protections for women. Measures introduced this year, it said, ended legal equality between men and women before the law, expanded men’s authority within marriage and made it harder for women to pursue divorce.
Economic exclusion remains another defining feature of the current environment, the report said.
Just 7% of women are employed, compared with 84% of men, according to the UN Women findings.
UN Women said its report draws on a door-to-door survey of 2,190 people carried out from February to March 2025, as well as telephone surveys of 2,811 people conducted from April to May 2026.
