These days, the world’s media are marking the unwelcome fifth anniversary of the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan. President Ashraf Ghani fled the country in August 2021, leading to the collapse of the Western-backed government and the Taliban’s return to power. As U.S. and other international forces withdrew, the world watched in disbelief as these events unfolded on the news. Women and girls could already anticipate what awaited them. They had previously lived under the oppressive Taliban regime from 1996 to 2001, when their fundamental human rights had been almost entirely stripped away.
Yet it seems that even the darkest predictions could not have anticipated the extent of the Taliban’s imagination in devising and legalising misogyny in its most extreme form. The return to power of the Taliban, a radical Islamic fundamentalist and political movement, marked the beginning of an unprecedented campaign of persecution and a renewed reign of terror against women and girls. Since retaking power in 2021, the Taliban administration has issued more than 100 restrictive decrees and official orders, while monitoring organisations and various reports have documented more than 130 specific directives systematically restricting the rights of Afghan women and girls.
The ultimate aim of these measures is to eliminate women’s presence from public life. The Taliban have almost succeeded in doing so. According to recent UN reports, Afghan women today leave their homes only once or twice a month because of severe restrictions. Afghanistan is now the only country in the world where girls are prohibited from attending secondary school and higher education. Taliban rules permit girls to be married before reaching puberty and treat their silence in response to marriage arrangements made by their parents as consent. Girls are expected to marry, bear children and remain at home. Many are sold into marriage while still children, some even before reaching the age of three, by families attempting to repay debts incurred in their struggle for basic survival.
In early 2026, the Taliban regime also introduced a new penal code, officially signed by Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, which in practice legalises domestic violence. Husbands are now legally permitted to physically punish their wives under certain conditions. Under this legal framework, a husband may physically punish his wife provided that the violence does not result in “broken bones” or “open wounds.” Physical punishment inflicted by a husband or “master” is therefore not considered a criminal offence unless it causes serious and visible physical injuries. If a husband uses “excessive force” that actually results in visible fractures or broken bones, the maximum legal penalty is limited to just 15 days in prison.
Misogyny on a Spectrum
When people think about the oppression of women today, Afghanistan is usually the first country that comes to mind. The country has become synonymous with misogyny and hatred of women simply because they are women. Afghanistan represents one extreme of the misogynistic spectrum, the most extreme end, where the oppression of women and girls has reached dystopian proportions. But this raises another question: what about the vast space between the two ends of the spectrum? What about the hundreds of millions of women and girls who live under restrictions that shape their everyday lives but have become so commonplace that the world has begun to regard them as normal and acceptable?
Across different countries, cultures, religions and political systems, women and girls want many of the same fundamental things: safety, dignity, freedom, education and the opportunity to shape their own lives. Yet in most countries, women and girls continue to encounter deeply entrenched systemic, legal and social barriers that undermine their fundamental human rights. Even in countries where legal frameworks formally guarantee equality, implementation in practice often falls short.
In almost one-third of countries, laws restrict women’s freedom of movement. In countries such as Bolivia, Chad, the Republic of the Congo, Bahrain, Iran and Niger, wives may require their husbands’ permission to work, travel or leave the home. In 19 countries, including Pakistan, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Malaysia, legal provisions continue to require married women to obey their husbands. In some countries, male guardianship laws still require women to obtain the consent of a husband, father or another male family member for certain important life decisions, thereby denying them full legal autonomy. A woman does not have complete legal freedom to make certain decisions about her own life independently; instead, some decisions require the consent or involvement of a male guardian.
A male guardian may be a father, husband, brother, son or another male relative. Depending on the country and the specific law, his consent or approval may be required for matters such as marriage, travel, obtaining a passport, certain medical decisions, education, employment or leaving the family home. In some countries, reforms have removed some of these restrictions, while other elements of male guardianship systems remain in place.
Around 118 million women of reproductive age live in countries such as Andorra, the Republic of the Congo, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Haiti, Honduras and Iraq, where abortion is prohibited without exception. Female genital mutilation has been documented in 94 countries, and in more than one-third of them there are no specific national laws or legal provisions explicitly addressing the practice.
The Equality of the Unequal
While men persecute and terrorise women, women are organising across national borders, resisting and relentlessly demanding change. The global struggle of women against violence and discrimination represents one of the largest and longest-running social movements in human history. Rates of gender-based violence are not declining, and women’s organisations and activists continue to work tirelessly to transform laws, support victims and dismantle patriarchal barriers.
Statistics show that globally, one in three women experiences some form of violence during her lifetime, regardless of where she lives, because violence against women recognises no administrative, territorial, racial or ethnic boundaries. It exists in different forms in every country in the world. Some women fare better than others, but collectively they share the same goal: equality before the law.
As long as everyone is equal before the law except women, women’s struggle for a life free from violence and discrimination is far from over.