Afghan women on International Women's Day demanded the country's hard-line Islamist Taliban rulers end bans and restrictions that have turned their lives upside down since the militants seized power in August 2021 as international troops withdrew.
Despite a Taliban-mandated ban on protests, Afghan women held small demonstrations on March 8 to demand their rights and for authorities to release imprisoned Afghan women activists.
They also called on the government to reopen schools and universities to females after cutting off their education after grade seven.
"The international community should defend the rights of Afghan women and help them gain the right to work, education, and equality," an exiled women's rights activist who requested anonymity told RFE/RL's Radio Azadi.
The Taliban seized power promising more moderate policies than when it ruled the country some two decades earlier. But its leaders have since doubled down on the recreation of a totalitarian clerical regime, especially with regard to women, who have effectively been denied any public role in society.
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Afghan Exiles Say Taliban Tightening Restrictions On Women
Afghan women have been banned from working in many sectors of the economy. Women-owned businesses face myriad restrictions. Women are also banned from recreation and leisure activities such as visiting public parks and public baths.
Women also are dealing with severe restrictions on mobility and how they can appear in public. In most instances, they are required to be accompanied by a male chaperone. A Taliban decree requires women to wear the niqab, the head-to-toe veil in which only their eyes are visible.
"The Taliban's restrictions have upended our lives," a university student in Kabul who requested anonymity told Radio Azadi. "My hopes of serving my community and our country have been dashed."
In the capital, Kabul, right campaigner Kavia Siddiqi said the Taliban-led government has systematically deprived Afghan women of rights and freedoms.
"Afghan women live in a prison because they are deprived of all their rights," she said.
The Taliban has treated the anger surrounding its decisions with the same type of oppression. Its government has detained and tortured hundreds of women activists, some of whom remain in custody.
"The fight for women's rights in Afghanistan is a global fight and a battle for women's rights everywhere," said Alison Davidian, special representative for UN Women in Afghanistan.
Richard Bennett, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, told Radio Azadi that Taliban discrimination against Afghan women could amount to "gender apartheid" if codified in international law.
He said that under the concept of "gender persecution," the treatment of women in Afghanistan could be prosecuted as crimes against humanity under the 1998 Rome Statue of the International Criminal Court.
"It is already possible to criminally prosecute for the crime of gender persecution," he said.