THE year 2025 has brought a chilling clarity to the world’s understanding of Afghanistan. While the Taliban regime claims to have brought stability and territorial control to the nation, a recent United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Monitoring Team report reveals the hollow nature of that peace. Beneath the surface of “stability” lies a landscape of fear. It is a society where the fundamental rights of millions are being methodically dismantled.
At the heart of this transformation is the Supreme Leader, Haibatullah Akhundzada. Ruling from Kandahar with absolute authority, Akhundzada has created a system where ideological purity is the only law. The report describes a country where the state does not serve its people but rather polices their thoughts, their gender and their history. For Afghan women and girls, the situation is nothing short of catastrophic.
The UN-Women’s Gender Index 2024 ranks Afghanistan as one of the worst performers globally. Currently, eight out of ten women are excluded from education and employment. These are not just statistics; they represent a billion-dollar loss to a fragile economy and the stolen futures of an entire generation. From secondary schools to universities, the doors remain locked. Movement is restricted. Healthcare is harder to reach. In this desperate environment, families are increasingly forced into the heartbreaking choice of early and forced marriages for their daughters.
This repression extends to anyone who does not fit the regime’s narrow mold. The Taliban has mandated the Hanafi Deobandi school of thought for all religious education. This policy effectively erases Shia, Salafi and Tablighi perspectives. Ethnic minorities like Tajiks and Uzbeks find themselves marginalized, as Pashtun figures dominate the military and administrative ranks. Even those promised safety under the regime’s “general amnesty” live in peril. Between January and March 2025 alone, dozens of former officials were arbitrarily detained or killed. The message is clear: the past will not be forgiven and the present will not be shared.
Freedom of expression has also become a casualty of this rigid order. Media outlets are shuttered and journalists are branded as “traitors.” In October 2025, the suspension of Shamshad TV served as a warning to all remaining voices. When the state controls the narrative, truth becomes a crime. Surprisingly, the regime is not entirely monolithic. Senior figures have privately argued that the ban on education contradicts Islamic law.
However, the cost of speaking out is high. Scholars and officials who advocate for change are quickly silenced, arrested or forced into exile. Haibatullah Akhundzada views any form of dissent as a threat to the “Islamic system.” He uses a network of loyal clerics and the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice to ensure that fear outweighs frustration. Afghanistan today is a nation of shrinking spaces.
As pluralism dies and human rights abuses become official policy, the world watches a society being pulled back into the shadows. The human cost is immense. Until the regime chooses engagement over intimidation, the people of Afghanistan remain trapped in an era of enforced silence and systematic exclusion.
—The writer is an alumnus of QAU, MPhil scholar and a freelance columnist, based in Islamabad.
