Khaama: Around 400 Afghans awaiting relocation to Germany have been arrested in Pakistan, with several deported to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, sparking urgent calls from rights groups to halt removals and resume transfers. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
By Farangis Najibullah
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 15, 2025
Just before the Afghan capital fell to the Taliban in August 2021, RFE/RL spoke with several young professionals in Kabul who voiced their fears and anxieties about the future. We reconnected with them again this week to see how their lives have unfolded.
KABUL — Ahmad Dawood juggles several jobs, from selling fruit on the street to working as a kitchen porter, to make sure he can put food on the table.
Dawood, a dressmaker by profession, had to close his small tailoring shop in Kabul’s vibrant Lycee Maryam shopping district four years ago. Afghanistan’s new rulers, the ultra-conservative Taliban, don’t allow men to interact with women who are not their close relatives.
“I took my sewing machine home, so I still sew dresses for some of my old regulars,” Dawood said.
Dawood’s customers arrive “discreetly” at his house on a backstreet of the Khairkhana neighborhood, where the 28-year-old dressmaker lives with his elderly parents.
But Dawood’s business has dwindled significantly, “not only because of the fear of the Taliban” but also due to the crippling economic crisis and poverty that have plagued Afghanistan.
“Who thinks about new dresses when they don’t have bread?” Dawood said.
A lack of jobs and stringent restrictions of women and girls’ rights are key concerns under the Taliban-led government, according to several young professionals in Kabul who spoke to RFE/RL.
The Taliban, which returned to power after the collapse of the Western-backed government in Kabul in August 2021, has notoriously banned girls’ education beyond the elementary school.
Women are not allowed to travel without a male guardian, dine out on their own, or work for the foreign aid groups that once employed thousands of women across the country.
No Time For Hobbies
“Nowadays, the majority of the people of Afghanistan, including the middle class, survive on bread and tea,” said Naseem Karimi, a 29-year-old former teacher who lives in the Karte Se neighborhood.
Karimi worked at a private school in downtown Kabul and dreamt about writing a novel and traveling abroad. He described his life before the Taliban as “comfortable,” with an “adequate salary” and “plenty of free time” to spend on his hobbies: reading and attending poetry nights.
The school lost half of its students — the girls — after the ban on their education. Dozens of male students left the school, too, as their families could no longer afford private education.
Karimi quit his job in early 2022, as his “new salary didn’t even cover [his] bus fare.” He did not elaborate on what his current occupation is but said he has since worked “in various projects” and jobs, including physical labor.
“I don’t have a hobby or a dream anymore. I haven’t read a book for a long time,” Karimi told RFE/RL.
“I come home late and am tired from work. I eat and then go to bed and wake up early again for work the next day. I don’t even have time to chat with my family,” he said.
Karimi, who lives with his parents, wonders if he “will ever be able to get married,” because he has “become too poor to provide for a family” of his own.
Work Is For ‘My Freedom And Mental Health’
Zainab Ramz, 26, makes 10,000 afghani (about $150) a month working for a private radio station in Kabul.
Ramz lives with her parents and two younger siblings and said her modest salary barely covers the essentials of food and the minibus fare to commute to work. Her “occasional luxury” is ice cream with her friends on a sweltering summer day.
“But work is not only about money for me. It is about my freedom and preserving my mental health, [and] it gives purpose to my life,” she told RFE/RL.
Ramz didn’t leave her house for nearly six months after the Taliban took over the capital, just weeks after she graduated from the Kabul University with a degree in journalism.
“There were rumors that Taliban fighters rape or forcibly marry young women,” Ramz said. “People were very afraid in the first weeks and months, but it gradually changed.”
“A Taliban fighter once told us that when he first came to Kabul, he was surprised that the people of Kabul are Muslim and ‘normal’ too, contrary to what he and many of his fellow fighters had imagined,” she recalled.
Ramz is among the Afghan women who have returned to work in media, banks, hospitals, primary schools, and other state and private institutions. She wears a wide, ankle-length dress and a head scarf, the dress code dictated by the Taliban-led government.
“As a female journalist, I am not allowed to have one-on-one interviews with Taliban officials. I leave a message on officials’ phones asking for comments and they respond with voicemail. I can ask questions in press briefings,” Ramz said about her work.
Working in the Afghan media under the Taliban involves self-censorship, she said, such as avoiding strong criticism of the group’s leaders and its policies.
“We are not allowed to call them ‘the Taliban’ anymore in the media. It’s ‘the government’ now,” Ramz added.
‘There Is Less Corruption Now’
In Kabul’s Makroyan neighborhood, Sara Atazada attends a private English-language course and hopes to become a teacher at an elementary school for girls.
Private courses are the last remaining route to higher education for girls in Afghanistan. Atazada was unable to finish her studies at Kabul University due to the Taliban ban on educating females beyond elementary school.
“To sum it up: Our lives turned upside down in these four years. The economy is in turmoil. The health-care sector is collapsing. People struggle to find food,” Atazada said.
“But I have to hand it to the Taliban that security has improved under this government,” Atazada said, echoing a sentiment shared by the other young Kabul residents who spoke to RFE/RL.
“Also, there is a lot less corruption in the government structures now,” according the journalist Ramz.
In addition to the two decades of military conflict, Afghans faced the daily risk of suicide attacks and roadside bombings mostly blamed on the Taliban as it fought against the Western-backed government between 2001 and 2021.
“Yes, we achieved peace finally, but we also need to eat, we need opportunities and freedom,” said Karimi, the former teacher. “For now, it feels like we are missing out on the best years of our lives.”
Taliban militants (file photo)
Afghanistan International: The report alleges that the Taliban block and redirect aid to ensure it reaches Pashtun communities rather than Tajik and Hazara populations. It says only 30 to 40 percent of all aid sent to Afghanistan has reached those truly in need. The United States has provided nearly $4 billion in humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan over the past four years. “Taliban use every means at their disposal, including force, to ensure that aid goes where they want it to go, as opposed to where donors intend,” the report states. It adds that the group approaches humanitarian aid distribution with an ethnic bias, favouring Pashtun-majority areas at the expense of other regions and ethnic minorities. According to SIGAR, an Afghan aid worker was killed for revealing that a Taliban military camp had stolen food aid. Click here to read more (external link).
Hamid Karzai
Afghanistan International: Former Afghan President Hamid Karzai has voiced concern over media reports of a Pakistani airstrike in Nuristan province, urging Islamabad to respect Afghanistan’s sovereignty and avoid violating international law. Taliban officials have so far remained silent on the incident. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: Fasihuddin Fitrat, Afghanistan’s Chief of Army Staff, has stated that the Islamic Emirate will not engage in any form of negotiation regarding Bagram Airfield – with any country, including the United States. In an interview with a local media outlet, Fitrat emphasized that the presence of even a single foreign soldier anywhere on Afghan soil is unacceptable to the Islamic Emirate. Click here to read more (external link).
Related
8am: Following the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan, the country’s healthcare system has been pushed to the brink of collapse, with international aid, which formed the backbone of medical service provision, almost entirely cut off. The American newspaper New Lines reported on Thursday, August 14, 2025, that more than 23 million people, nearly half of Afghanistan’s population, require assistance to access food, clean water, or basic medical care. This situation has become alarmingly worse following the significant reduction of global aid and the withdrawal of international relief organizations. Click here to read more (external link).
Ariana: After a six-year break, the Afghanistan Premier League (APL) is set to return, backed by a long-term commercial partnership. The Afghanistan Cricket Board (ACB) aims to relaunch the T20 league in October–November, likely in the Middle East, with hopes of attracting international stars and establishing a sustainable tournament model. Click here to read more (external link).
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
August 14, 2025
Four years after the Taliban retook power in Afghanistan, the United Nations says the ultra-conservative group “is closer than ever to achieving its vision of a society that completely erases women from public life.”
Since returning to power on August 15, 2021, Taliban officials have imposed a series of draconian rules that strip Afghan women and girls of their rights and dignity, the gender equality agency UN Women said on August 11.
The Taliban-led government has banned girls from school beyond the sixth grade, while women are barred from most jobs and political life. They also must adhere to a strict Islamic dress code outside their homes.
A new report by the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) backs up the warning issued by UN Women documenting numerous cases of women being detained by inspectors from the Ministry of Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice — the Taliban’s morality police — for allegedly breaching the dress code requirements.
“The edicts which the Taliban have passed restricting women and girls’ rights interact together to create an inescapable cycle which relegates women to private spaces and increases their vulnerability,” UN Women said.
The UN says more than 78 percent of Afghan women have lost access to education, employment, or training since the Taliban returned to power.
For example, in the western city of Herat, UNAMA said, dozens of women deemed not in compliance with the hijab rules were barred from entering markets or using public transport in May. Several women were detained until their relatives brought them clothes to cover themselves completely, according to the report.
The Taliban has banned women from traveling without a male guardian, a move that in some instances has deprived women from accessing health-care and other vital services.
According to UNAMA, the Taliban’s morality police have instructed health clinics, government offices, shops, markets, and taxi drivers across the country to deny services for women not accompanied by a male relative, or a so-called mahram.
In the Upper Maiwand district of southern Kandahar Province, for example, Taliban inspectors reminded drivers, travel agents, and travelers at the local bus station that women and girls are not allowed to travel without a mahram.
The Kandahar morality police also demanded female health-care workers be accompanied to work by a male guardian carrying a “mahram identification card.” Such cards are issued by the Taliban-led Department of Public Health and establish the relationship between the card holder and the female health worker.
Child marriage has also become more common, and “women are increasingly subjected to violence, inside and outside of their homes,” the UN said.
UN Women predicts that impediments to receiving health care for women will increase maternal mortality rates in Afghanistan by 50 percent by 2026.
Many of the deaths were reportedly due to preventable pregnancy complications exacerbated by severe shortages in qualified birth attendants and an under-resourced health-care system.
The shortage of specialists is expected to be even more dire in coming years as the Taliban has banned women from studying at universities and has closed private schools that offered courses on midwifery, nursing, and laboratory assistance.
UN Women warned the results of the Taliban’s oppressive policies on women in Afghanistan “are devastating.”
“Women are living shorter, less healthy lives,” the UN agency said.
The situation for women and girls in Afghanistan has become “increasingly untenable” under the Taliban, the agency said, and warned that “without urgent action, this untenable reality will become normalized and women and girls will be fully excluded” from public life.
Related
8am: Reports indicate that al-Qaeda is rebuilding its operational capacity inside Afghanistan. While the Taliban and even many global powers deliberately downplay the network’s presence, the reality is that al-Qaeda, working in close coordination with the Taliban, is establishing new bases in strategic and mountainous regions, particularly in Panjshir Province. These developments point to covert security strategies aimed at drawing Asian powers into a new kind of multinational terrorism. Local sources in Panjshir report that al-Qaeda has trained roughly 500 newly recruited fighters, mostly from Arab countries, with some from Somalia, in both military tactics and ideological indoctrination. These recruits speak Arabic and English, and dedicated terrorist training camps have been established for them. Click here to read more (external link).