UN urges support for Afghan women’s aid five years into Taliban rule

Marking five years since the Taliban's August 2021 return to power, the United Nations warned that severe funding shortfalls threatened the survival of Afghan women's support networks: UN Women's special representative Susan Ferguson said more than half of 74 surveyed women's organizations were likely to suspend operations or close within a year, as the UN's $1.7 billion humanitarian appeal for Afghanistan remained only 25% funded. UNESCO separately reported that 2.4 million Afghan girls remained barred from secondary school -- a number that has grown by 200,000 in a year and could approach 4 million by 2030 -- making Afghanistan the only country in the world barring women and girls from secondary and higher education; a UN Women survey found 70% of Afghan women described their mental health as bad or very bad, and that most now leave their homes only once or twice a month. A coalition of 56 countries, including the US, UK, Germany and Japan, issued a joint UN statement renewing calls for the Taliban to reverse its restrictions, which the statement said amounted to 'systematic repression of women and girls.'

In interviews with the BBC, Afghan women described lives transformed by more than 100 Taliban decrees restricting nearly every aspect of daily life, from public flogging (one woman, Shaima, described being whipped 50 times after being forced to confess to being an 'apostate woman') to bans on female employment outside limited sectors -- though the Taliban's foreign minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi, disputed characterizations of a total ban, citing roughly 120,000 female entrepreneurs. Separately, FIFA ruled in April 2026 that Afghan Women United, a team of exiled former national-team players now living in countries including Australia, the UK and Portugal, could represent Afghanistan in official competition without Afghanistan Football Federation approval -- impossible under the Taliban, which barred women's organized sport. The team, reunited for the first time in years for a training camp in New Zealand, lost both friendly matches against the Cook Islands, but players described the reunion itself, following years of separation as asylum seekers, as a significant victory in preserving Afghan women's football.