In just 10 months, the role of women in the public sphere in Afghanistan has sharply reduced, including in households. The share of women reporting “good” or “full” influence in the household decreased from 90 per cent in January to 39 per cent in November 2023. This is what UN Women, together with UNAMA and IOM, reported from the latest quarterly country-wide women’s consultations which started in August 2022. Since the Taliban takeover in 2021, the de facto administration has introduced more than 50 decrees directly restricting the freedoms of women. The decrees issued by the de facto administration create an enabling and permissive environment for discrimination against women and girls, illustrated by a rise of violence against women and a shift of social attitudes towards women and girls since 2021. UN Women have also found that access to employment and education are key to addressing wide-ranging issues including the mental health crisis (76% of women scored their mental health as very bad or bad). This is also particularly crucial as women emphasized that education levels and economic empowerment influence household and community-wide decision-making.
UN Women has developed an Afghanistan Gender Country Profile as part of the close partnership with the EU in Afghanistan with the aim to identify actions and key objectives under the Gender Action Plan in External Action 2021-2027 (GAP III). It provides a detailed gender analysis across each of the 6 key thematic priority areas of the GAP III and as such the Gender Profile is the most comprehensive gender analysis that has been done in Afghanistan since the Taliban takeover. Not only does it examine the current decrees, policies, and practices around gender under Taliban rule, but it also provides recommendations for the international community on how to support women and girls in Afghanistan.
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