1. INTRODUCTION

The events of August 15, 2021, when Taliban forces entered Kabul and President Ashraf Ghani fled the country, marked the collapse of the Western-backed government after two decades of reconstruction efforts. This was not merely a geopolitical event but a severe regression for human rights—particularly for women, the most vulnerable group in this abrupt political transition.

The global women’s rights movement, from the first wave fighting for suffrage to the fourth wave focusing on digital spaces and intersectionality, had gradually constructed a robust international normative framework for women’s rights, institutionalized through CEDAW (1979), the Beijing Platform for Action (1995), and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). However, Afghanistan 2021 fundamentally challenged this framework, as a government implemented systematic ‘gender apartheid’ across the entire national territory.

The central question this article poses is: How have Taliban governance policies during 2021–2024 impacted Afghan women’s rights across political, economic, social, and family dimensions? From this, the article interprets the challenges the international community faces in protecting women’s rights under a de facto government that lacks diplomatic recognition but exercises actual control over an entire territory.

  1. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK AND METHODOLOGY

This research is positioned within the framework of multicultural feminism and transnational feminism, which emphasize the specificity of cultural-religious contexts in analyzing gender oppression. Unlike liberal Western feminism with its tendency to impose a universal standard, multicultural feminism acknowledges the diversity of women’s experiences and critiques both cultural colonialism and religious extremism as sources of oppression.

The concept of ‘gender apartheid’—introduced by international human rights organizations to describe Afghanistan’s situation—provides a useful analytical tool: this is an institutionalized, systematic, and comprehensive system of gender discrimination, structurally analogous to racial apartheid but imposed on the basis of gender.

Methodologically, the article employs qualitative research combining secondary document analysis and comparative analysis using the Most-Different Systems Design (MDSD)—comparing two contextually divergent countries (Afghanistan and Vietnam) to highlight institutional and cultural factors determining different outcomes in women’s rights.

  1. THE STATE OF WOMEN’S RIGHTS IN AFGHANISTAN 2021–2024

3.1. Exclusion from Political Life

Before August 2021, Afghanistan boasted a female parliamentary representation rate of 27.9% (2019)—higher than many Western democracies. Women held ministerial, mayoral, and gubernatorial positions, with over 500 female prosecutors active in the justice system. Twenty years of international investment had created a professional female class with capability and political consciousness.

However, within weeks of the Taliban takeover, all these achievements were erased. By September 2021, the female parliamentary representation rate had dropped to 0%. The Taliban dissolved the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and replaced it with the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice—the same body used to control and punish women during 1996–2001. Women were banned from working in most government agencies, NGOs, and even UN agencies from April 2023.

3.2. Economic Marginalization

According to World Bank data, women’s labor force participation fell from 16% in 2020 to 14.8% in 2021, then plummeted to 5% in 2022 and remained at 4.8% in 2023–2024. This is one of the lowest rates globally, a fraction of the approximately 47% world average.

The ban on women working in NGOs (December 2022) directly impacted the humanitarian aid distribution system, which relied heavily on female staff for community outreach. Many aid organizations were forced to scale back or suspend operations, exacerbating the already severe humanitarian crisis. According to World Bank, 48% of Afghanistan’s population lived below the poverty line in 2024, with 25 million of 41 million people requiring aid to sustain their lives.

3.3. Denial of Education and Healthcare

Education is the most devastated sector. Within months of taking power, the Taliban closed all schools for female students from grade 7 upward (September 2021), followed by a ban on women attending universities (December 2022). According to UNESCO (2024), at least 1.4 million girls are being denied access to education. Afghanistan has become the only country in the world to officially ban women from secondary and higher education.

In healthcare, women cannot access medical care without a male guardian (mahram), creating a practical barrier to health services. A UN report in August 2024 confirmed that 60% of Afghan women have poor or very poor mental health, and 8% have had suicidal thoughts or attempts. UN Women representative Alison Davidian warned that by 2026, the cumulative effects of these policies could increase early marriage rates by 45% and maternal mortality by 50%.

3.4. Personal Security and Freedom of Movement

The new morality law imposed by Supreme Leader Haibatullah Akhundzada requires a series of restrictions: women cannot travel without a mahram, are banned from parks, gyms, cafes, and must completely cover their faces in public. Even taxi drivers can be fined for transporting women without a guardian—a mechanism that extends the responsibility of control to the broader society.

Data from the Afghan Witness project of the Centre of Information Resilience, collected between January 2022 and June 2024, recorded 840 cases of violence against women and girls, with at least 332 deaths. Of documented violence cases: 115 sexual violence incidents, 113 arbitrary arrests, 73 torture and physical violence cases, 54 deliberate killings.

  1. ANALYSIS: THE MECHANISM OF GENDER OPPRESSION MAINTENANCE

Taliban rule is not a random collection of restrictive policies but a structured system designed to neutralize women as social agents. This mechanism can be analyzed through three layers: institutional exclusion (removing women from legislative, executive, and judicial bodies), economic control (stripping labor and property rights to create absolute financial dependence), and cognitive isolation (banning education and controlling information to limit women’s access to alternative reference frameworks).

  1. COMPARISON WITH VIETNAM

Vietnam’s 15th National Assembly has 151 female delegates (over 30%), while Afghanistan’s figure is 0%. Vietnam’s women’s labor force participation rate stands at 61.6% (2021), compared to 4.8% in Afghanistan (2023). The 2023 Global Gender Gap Report ranked Vietnam 72nd out of 146 countries, up 11 places from 2022.

This comparison illustrates that gender equality outcomes are not inevitable but depend on institutional will, legal frameworks, and the cultural-political orientation of governance. Both countries face their own challenges, but they represent polar opposites in terms of the state’s role in promoting or suppressing women’s rights.

  1. RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the analysis, this article proposes four solution clusters: (1) Conditional aid with independent monitoring tied to measurable women’s rights indicators; (2) Support for underground and online education through anonymous digital learning platforms; (3) Leveraging moderate Islamic frameworks by supporting progressive Islamic scholars to build Qur’an-based arguments for women’s rights; and (4) Amplifying international media advocacy combined with legal-political actions at the UN Security Council level.

  1. CONCLUSION

The state of women’s rights in Afghanistan 2021–2024 represents one of the most serious human rights challenges of the 21st century. The Taliban’s return to power not only reversed 20 years of gender equality progress but established a structured, comprehensive, and systematic system of gender discrimination. The comparative analysis with Vietnam demonstrates that gender equality outcomes depend on institutional will and policy investment. The international community’s continued inaction in the face of ‘gender apartheid’ in Afghanistan is not only a moral failure but a dangerous precedent that could embolden other extremist governments worldwide.