{"id":37731,"date":"2026-08-15T12:28:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-15T08:58:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/?p=37731"},"modified":"2026-08-15T12:57:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-15T09:27:24","slug":"five-years-into-taliban-rule-afghanistan-plunges-into-a-state-of-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/five-years-into-taliban-rule-afghanistan-plunges-into-a-state-of-collapse\/","title":{"rendered":"Five years into Taliban rule, Afghanistan plunges into a state of collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Note: We urgently need your financial support to continue our work in Afghanistan, where an ongoing gender-based crisis is deeply affecting women and girls. Your support can help us continue standing with those in need. Every contribution makes a difference. Thank you for your solidarity and generosity.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fund raising link: https:\/\/www.justgiving.com\/page\/rukhshanamedia<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Harriet Barber<\/a>, Zuhal Azad  and Tamanna Taban<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This report is published in collaboration with the Guardian <\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The stark figures show that since the hardliners seized power in 2021, women have been erased from public life, poverty is forcing hopeless families to marry off their daughters and healthcare is on the brink of failure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


I married off my daughter so that none of us would die of hunger.\u201d Malika hesitated before saying the words aloud. The 46-year-old lives with her husband and four youngest children (three girls and a boy) in Chihil Dukhtar\u0101n, one of Kabul\u2019s poorest neighbourhoods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Poverty pushed the family to the brink before Malika and her husband made what they describe as the hardest decision of their lives: marrying off their eldest daughter, Maryam, for 200,000 afghanis (\u00a32,270). She was still a teenager.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod is my witness that during that winter, our food was almost nothing but dry bread and boiled water. Even that was often unavailable, and many nights we went to bed hungry,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy poor daughter cried in secret \u2026 [but knew] if she refused this marriage, all of us would die from hunger, cold and misery.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost two years on from Maryam\u2019s marriage, crisis again looms for the family. Malika can no longer afford to send her two youngest daughters (aged 12 and nine) to school, so they work alongside their 16-year-old sister in a clothing factory for meagre wages. Her husband\u2019s job is pushing a handcart, but he often returns home empty-handed \u2013 one of millions of Afghans out of work in a crippled economy. The dowry money has almost run out. Like many Afghan families, they have one resource left to tap: their girls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Five years after the Taliban swept back into Kabul, Afghanistan<\/a> has entered a quieter phase of emergency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fighting that once dominated international headlines has largely faded from view, but for millions of Afghans the crisis has only deepened. Nearly half the population requires humanitarian aid and more than 14 million people are expected to face acute food insecurity<\/a> this year, while rights have been mercilessly restricted, women systematically erased from public life and millions of deportees forced back to an economy unable to absorb them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An economy collapsing<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The economy remains far smaller and more isolated than it was before the Taliban returned to power. Foreign trade has plummeted<\/a>, and imports have increasingly outpaced exports since 2021, widening the country\u2019s trade deficit.. Government finances have also contracted significantly. The Taliban\u2019s most recent published budget, for the 2023 fiscal year, totalled $2.44bn, less than half the roughly $6bn budget under the previous government in 2021. In 2024, the authorities also abolished Afghanistan\u2019s public pension system as they sought to cope with the country\u2019s fiscal crisis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Economic output is expanding, yet it is struggling to keep pace with rapid population growth driven by the return of millions of Afghans owing to deportation drives in Pakistan and Iran.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation has added to those pressures. After averaging 3.6% in 2025, it rose to 7.6% by March 2026, driven by increasing food prices, supply disruptions and rising demand, further eroding household purchasing power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unemployment has almost doubled since 2021<\/a>, according to the UN. More than half a million jobs<\/a> have disappeared and cuts to international aid have hollowed out public spending, while rising food prices<\/a> have once again squeezed household budgets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFive years after the Taliban<\/a> takeover, Afghanistan is experiencing the world\u2019s worst women\u2019s rights crisis, one of the worst human rights crises and one of the worst humanitarian crises,\u201d said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years of economic hardship, successive droughts and collapsing international aid have left millions unable to afford basic goods. The numbers are staggering. An estimated 21.9 million people<\/a> \u2013 about 45% of the population \u2013 will require humanitarian assistance in 2026. About 11.6 million<\/a> are children, with 3.5 million under-fives<\/a> already suffering from acute malnutrition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But that aid is not arriving. The US, once the country\u2019s largest donor, provided more than $3bn<\/a> in humanitarian and development assistance between October 2021 and December 2024. But in January 2025, President Donald Trump suspended US humanitarian funding for Afghanistan as part of a pause on all foreign aid programmes, removing a source that had accounted for about 45% of humanitarian support.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consequences have been immediate. More than 440 health clinics have been forced to close or reduce services because of funding shortages, increasing the proportion of Afghans without access to healthcare from 16% in 2024 to 23% in 2025. Earlier this year, the World Food Programme said it now turned away<\/a> three out of four acutely malnourished children seeking help because it no longer had the funds to buy food for them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The annihilation of women\u2019s rights<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The humanitarian crisis has unfolded alongside a sweeping assault on women\u2019s rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban have barred girls from secondary schools<\/a>, banned women from universities<\/a>, excluded them from much of the workforce and public life. In 2022, women were barred from public parks and gyms<\/a>; in 2024, the Taliban prohibited women from speaking audibly in public, and this year a brutal new marriage law<\/a> has perpetuated domestic violence and child abuse by effectively recognising child marriage and making it much harder for women to seek divorce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Zarifa Ghafari, formerly mayor of Maidan Shahr, and one of Afghanistan\u2019s few female mayors, who fled the country in August 2021, says Afghan women and girls have experienced one of the \u201cfastest and most systematic reversals of women\u2019s rights in modern history\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The consequences are visible across almost every measure of equality. Women\u2019s labour force participation has fallen from about one in six<\/a> women before the Taliban takeover to roughly one in 20 today. Only 18% of midwives<\/a> are formally employed, while nearly 80% of female journalists<\/a> have been forced from their jobs. The UN estimates that excluding women and girls from education and work is already costing Afghanistan at least $84m a year<\/a>. Afghanistan no longer keeps any records of its child marriage rates, and has also prevents NGOs from gathering data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But as girls are forced from school and parents struggle to feed their children, rights organisations believe more and more are being pushed into child marriage \u2013 with the economic and gender rights crises compounding one another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year, Nilofar, a 13-year-old girl from Bamiyan, completed the sixth grade (year 7) \u2013 the final year girls are allowed to attend school. Her small frame makes her look even younger than her age. Her parents have engaged her to be married to an older relative she has never met.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMy parents tell me that now your education is over, it\u2019s time to get married. Keeping a grown daughter at home is a heavy burden,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Afghanistan now ranks at the bottom of the Georgetown Institute\u2019s Women, Peace and Security Index<\/a> for measures of women\u2019s inclusion, justice and security. The UN and human rights organisations have described the systematic dismantling of women\u2019s rights as gender apartheid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMillions of girls have grown up knowing only exclusion instead of opportunity,\u201d Ghafari says. \u201cThe Taliban are not only harming individual lives; they are depriving Afghanistan of doctors, teachers, engineers, entrepreneurs and future leaders. The damage will be felt for generations.\u201d The rise of child marriage exposes girls to high rates of violence and abuse, as well as the prospect of pregnancy and childbirth at a very young age.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the end of a crowded hospital corridor in Kabul, Shamim, 17, cradles a child in her arms as she waits to see a doctor. She looks more like a schoolgirl than a mother bringing her child to a hospital for treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When approached and asked about the baby in her arms, she replies quietly, without looking up: \u201cHe\u2019s my son.\u201d She was forced, along with all other Afghan girls, to leave the school system in sixth grade (about 12 years old). By age 15, she was married, and less than a year later she was pregnant with her first child. Her marriage brought her family 200,000 afghanis, she says. A small portion went to buying household items, and \u201cthey used the remaining amount to pay off their debts\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Geopolitical tensions rise<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

The country\u2019s internal crises have been compounded by the forced return of millions of Afghans, mostly from neighbouring Iran and Pakistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2023, almost 6 million people<\/a> have returned after intensified crackdowns on undocumented migrants. The UN expects another 2.7 million returns<\/a> between May and December this year, placing further strain on housing, jobs, healthcare and schools.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo country can absorb that much population increase, especially a country like Afghanistan where half of the country is already in need of assistance,\u201d says Mihyung Park, chief of mission in Afghanistan for International Organization for Migration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Relations with Pakistan have also deteriorated sharply<\/a>. Islamabad accuses the Taliban of harbouring militants from the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan group \u2013 allegations the Taliban denies. The dispute has spilled into armed clashes along the border, with exchanges of fire and airstrikes killing civilians and forcing families to flee on both sides. Repeated border closures have also disrupted trade and livelihoods in communities that depend on cross-border movement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet even as rights have continued to deteriorate, the Taliban has steadily expanded its international reach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russia has formally recognised<\/a> the government and signed a military cooperation agreement, while China and the United Arab Emirates<\/a> have accepted Taliban-appointed ambassadors. Taliban officials have also met European Union representatives<\/a> in Brussels to discuss migration, prompting criticism from human rights groups.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cRecognising the Taliban without meaningful progress on human rights risks legitimising a system built on gender apartheid,\u201d says Ghafari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As governments reopen diplomatic channels, many Afghans fear the world is learning to live with a regime that they cannot escape.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cStability cannot be achieved by sacrificing half the population,\u201d Ghafari says. \u201cTo Afghan women, it sends the message that geopolitical interests are outweighing their fundamental rights and freedoms.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The stark figures show that since the hardliners seized power in 2021, women have been erased from public life, poverty is forcing hopeless families to marry off their daughters and healthcare is on the brink of failure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37733,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1022,966,9581,902,968],"tags":[11563,11564,2671],"class_list":["post-37731","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cases-en","category-featured-en","category-our-work-en","category-reports-en","category-special-coverage-en","tag-afghanistan-plunges","tag-state-of-collapse","tag-taliban-rule"],"yoast_head":"\nFive years into Taliban rule, Afghanistan plunges into a state of collapse - 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