BBC Afghan Languages

After returning to power in August 2021, the Taliban resumed the public implementation of corporal punishments.

The number of public punishments rose sharply after 13 November 2022, when Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada instructed the group’s judicial institutions to review defendants’ cases “carefully” and implement Islamic punishments against them.

In all of these cases, flogging was part of the sentence, and some of those convicted were also sentenced to imprisonment.

According to statistics published by the Taliban Supreme Court, in 2024 at least 241 people, including 210 men and 31 women, were publicly punished for various offenses.

In 2025, that number increased to 395 people, including 317 men and 78 women.

Not all cases of public punishment are recorded or published on the Taliban Supreme Court’s website and official notices, so the actual number of such punishments is likely higher.

For the first time since the Taliban's reintroduction of public lashings, the BBC Afghan Forensic team has exclusively spoken to women about their experiences of being publicly punished.

For security reasons the dates and locations of the incidents have been withheld.

Some audiences may find these accounts distressing.

They tied my hands and covered my face at the court of appeals.

In front of all the visitors, they flogged me. I received 39 lashes. They counted them themselves.

The document that listed my alleged offense and charges also stated the punishment.

I was in a friendship and getting-to-know-you relationship with someone. We wanted to get married, but unfortunately we were arrested.

I do not know how the Taliban intelligence found out, or whether someone reported us.

Image source, Getty Images

Banned from playing sport in their own country, Afghan women in exile are continuing to show up for their teams around the world.

Last week a 23-player squad, selected from Afghan players now living abroad, travelled to New Zealand for a training camp and to play two unofficial friendly games against the Cook Islands.

It was the first time they have been together since football governing body Fifa ruled in April that they could represent their country in official matches in the future.

"If I wasn't a footballer, I would still be in Afghanistan, one of millions of girls who are not allowed to study, speak up or choose their own future," says Mursal Sadat, who now lives in Australia.

Image source, Getty Images

A month earlier, it was announced that an Afghanistan women's cricket refugee team based would have their funding extended under a combined programme from cricket boards in England, Australia and India, plus the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Since settling in Australia, where they now live and train, Afghanistan's women's players have repeatedly called on the ICC to recognise them once again as an international team and commit to long-term funding.

Despite all these hardships, I have not completely lost my dreams. Maybe today I cannot work, like I used to, but I still have the same passion and motivation in my heart.

I still want to work again, learn, be present in society and feel that I make decisions for my own life. I don’t want my whole life to be limited to the four walls of my house.

I want to feel that my abilities and talents are valuable again. I want to wake up in the morning with excitement and get ready to do what I love. I want to hear my own voice again and know that I can be useful to society.

These five years were not just five years of my life for me. They were years when a part of my youth, work opportunities, social experiences and many of my dreams stopped.

However, I still hope that this is not the end of my story. I believe that if one day a second chance is provided for women, I can start again.

Maybe the path back will be difficult. Maybe I will have to start from scratch but I am willing to try again.

Yogita Limaye
Afghanistan correspondent

Prior to the Taliban supreme leader’s diktat in 2022 banning the cultivation of opium poppy, Afghanistan used to produce more than 80% of the world’s opium.

In 2023, after the ban was implemented, cultivation fell by 95% according to the United Nations.

We travelled to Helmand and Kandahar, which at the time were some of the biggest producers of opium, to find that the ban had been strictly enforced. We were also given access to a patrol in the Nangarhar province, where Taliban men slashed poppy crops.

Three years since the ban, the UN says the overall production of opium poppy still remains a fraction of what it was in 2022.

While there have been instances of violent skirmishes between the Taliban and locals over the ban in areas like the north-eastern province of Badakhshan, the authorities appear to have been largely successful in enforcing the diktat.

However, the UN has found that the production and trafficking of synthetic drugs, especially methamphetamine, has been increasing since the ban.

For the first time since the Taliban's reintroduction of public lashings, the BBC Afghan Forensic team has exclusively spoken to women about their experiences of being publicly punished.

For security reasons the dates and locations of the incidents have been withheld.

Some audiences may find these accounts distressing.

It was 12 noon on a Friday when seven or eight people came to our house. Without knocking, they opened the door and entered.

My children were terrified. Even now, when I remember that terrible day, my whole body trembles.

During the struggle, my headscarf fell off. Before I even had a chance to cover myself properly, they took me away in a vehicle and threw a blanket over me.

About an hour later, they brought me a full-body veil, which I put on.

Before they publicly put me on trial, they beat me severely and pulled out my hair.

They brought a paper and forced me to confess that: “Yes, I am an apostate woman. I am collaborating with infidels and have spoken with unrelated men.”

For many Afghans there’s little cause for celebrationpublished at 10:41 BST

10:41 BST

Lyse Doucet
Chief international correspondent, in Kabul

Five years ago, Kabul was plunged into chaos as Taliban fighters swept into this city.

Today, the capital is festooned with their white flags and banners as they celebrate their victory.

They’re oozing confidence, and in control.

But they’re still under international sanctions, foreign assets are still frozen, and only one country, Russia, has formally recognised their rule.

Their chief spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told us in an interview of their relations with regional and Islamic countries; he accused the West of treating the Taliban as if they were still at war.

Afghanistan is more peaceful now – the Taliban are no longer attacking and foreign forces are gone. But millions of Afghans are finding it hard to make ends meet.

We saw in villages outside Kabul the ravages of drought, how foreign aid is drying up.

Harsh Taliban edicts are erasing women and girls from public life. Girls can’t go to school beyond grade six, women can’t go to university, and can’t do many jobs. For many Afghans, there’s little cause for celebration on this anniversary.

When schools were closed to girls I did not want to give up.

I joined an online school and continued my education. Despite all the difficulties, I have recently completed my school education online.

For some people, finishing school might seem like an ordinary achievement but for me it is a very important victory, because I had to continue studying while carrying the sadness of not knowing what my future would look like.

Since I was a child I dreamed of becoming a pilot.

Whenever I looked at the sky I imagined myself flying an airplane and seeing the world from above.

I wanted to fly freely and experience a world without limits.

But today becoming a pilot feels almost impossible for me, because I am a girl living in Afghanistan.

The stark reality of Afghanistan's hunger crisispublished at 10:10 BST

10:10 BST

Yogita Limaye
Afghanistan correspondent

This post contains distressing details.

Afghanistan is facing one of the world’s most severe hunger crises in the world. It is seeing record levels of hunger and malnutrition.

3.7 million children are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year, according to the United Nations.

This is a crisis caused by a swirl of factors - staggering aid cuts, the Taliban government’s policies, natural disasters such as drought and floods, as well as the return of millions of Afghans from Iran and Pakistan.

Over the years we have witnessed the humanitarian situation worsening. Families in remote areas have told us they have been forced to make unimaginable choices – even selling their daughters into marriage so that they can buy food for their other children.

Mothers have told us they give their babies sedatives, and in some cases, even antidepressants, so that they sleep despite being hungry.

In hospitals, we have witnessed first-hand a surge in the rate of newborn deaths, of malnourished babies born to malnourished mothers.

Rachel Flynn
Live reporter

It is early afternoon now in Afghanistan and we have been hearing from women across the country about their lives under the ultra-conservative Taliban rulers.

The BBC is one of the few media organisations that has consistently had access to the country since the Taliban re-gained control in 2021 - two decades after being removed from power by a US-led military coalition. Our Afghanistan correspondent Yogita Limaye has been explaining what it's like to be a foreign woman reporting from the country.

We've also been hearing from former journalist, Zuhal, 32, who says when the Taliban retook control "it was as if all the hopes and dreams that I had worked for for years were suddenly buried under the ground".

Shakiba, an 18-year-old jewellery maker, tells the BBC it was "the worst and most painful day of [her] life".

Ela, a dental assistant from Kabul province, says "challenges go beyond restrictions on women’s education" - read more about how her life has changed.

We'll bring you more stories from women in Afghanistan throughout the day.

For the first time since the Taliban's reintroduction of public lashings, the BBC Afghan Forensic team has exclusively spoken to women about their experiences of being publicly punished.

For security reasons the dates and locations of the incidents have been withheld.

Some audiences may find these accounts distressing.

We were alone in a car when two men from the local command office approached us and asked what we were doing, what our relationship was, and where we were going.

He was from one village and I was from another. Since our villages were far apart, they questioned us extensively. On the way to the command office, they kept calling me a bad woman and a prostitute.

They took us to the command office and then referred us to the court of appeals. I was sentenced to 39 lashes and spent more than nine months in prison.

In prison, I experienced things that I have never even told my mother about, and I still cannot bring myself to speak of them.

I was deeply humiliated.

Taliban government officials have consistently strongly denied allegations of mistreatment of female prisoners and have emphasised that accused individuals are dealt with in accordance with the laws of Islamic Sharia, and that women’s prisons are administered by women.

We're spending today speaking with women across Afghanistan.

While they're talking to the BBC, they're also ready to answer any questions you might have about their daily lives.

If you've got a question you'd like to ask these Afghan women, you can press the Get in touch button at the top of this page, or via the following:

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Yogita Limaye
Afghanistan correspondent

As female journalists in Afghanistan, we adhere to the Taliban prescribed dress code for women, covering our hair with a headscarf and wearing loose gowns called abayas over our clothes.

We often get away with our faces not being covered, perhaps because we are foreign, but there have been occasions on which monitors from the Taliban’s morality police, who are formally called the Ministry for Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, have ordered us to cover our faces.

There are a few ministries that we are not allowed to enter because we are women.

We do have access to some government departments.

When we interview Taliban spokesman, I can’t be pictured in the same frame as them, and in recent years they have asked that I do not sit opposite them during the interview.

My day usually starts at 08:00 and ends at 18:00.

I work at a private clinic as a manager and dental assistant.

Since 2021, my life has changed significantly. I was unable to continue my studies in stomatology, and life has become very different.

The challenges go beyond restrictions on women’s education. Unemployment, poverty, and the struggle to afford basic necessities have affected almost every family.

People are so overwhelmed by poverty and daily hardships that many have been forced to put their education, dreams, and hopes for the future aside.

Today, survival has become the priority, and many of us no longer have the time or energy to think about the future.

Image source, Getty Images

While girls' and women's rights have drastically worsened after the Taliban resumed control of Afghanistan in 2021, "deep-rooted barriers" held women back long before then, the United Nations says.

In 2011, Afghanistan was named the most dangerous country to be a woman, according to an international poll of experts on gender issues.

High levels of violence, poor healthcare and poverty made Afghanistan the worst, the study by the Thomson Reuters Foundation said.

But there was progress, too. In 2004, a new constitution allocated 25% of parliamentarian and provincial council seats to women, as well as 30% of civil service positions.

It also bound Afghanistan to implement all international conventions on women's rights, and created a women's affairs ministry.

Since I was a child, studying has always been one of the biggest dreams of my life.

I studied until grade nine at high school and at that time I believed that like every other girl I would be able to finish school, and go to university and one day achieve my dreams.

But when the government collapsed everything changed for me and for thousands of other Afghan girls.

15 August, when the government fell, was the worst and most painful day of my life.

Every year when this date comes I feel as if an old wound opens again and a new feeling of defeat fills my heart.

That day I felt that many of the dreams I had carried inside me for years were suddenly taken away from me.

Yogita Limaye
Afghanistan correspondent

Image source, Getty Images

It has been evident to us for a long time that there are divisions within the Taliban government on the issue of women’s education.

Off camera, many Taliban officials we have met, including senior leaders, have confessed that they would like schools and universities to be reopened for female students.

But the Kandahar-based emir, or supreme leader, has remained intransigent and over the years has hardened his stance bringing more restrictions against women.

There has been no public breaking of ranks with the emir’s diktats, with the exception of remarks made early last year by Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, the Taliban’s former deputy foreign minister, who called for schools to be reopened for girls.

Soon after, he left the country and since then does not appear to have returned to Afghanistan.

I am a young Afghan woman. I completed my schooling with many difficulties because of challenges within my family.

Despite all these problems, I never gave up. I continued my education and successfully completed high school.

After that, I entered university and chose to study Law and Political Science because I wanted to support women who have suffered - by giving them a voice and defending their rights.

And I continued my studies with many difficulties because our family's economy was very poor. I even borrowed money for my university expenses.

To get to the university, I had to travel from the district to the city, which took me almost three hours to get to the university.

Now, due to the progress of my work, I lack financial resources and need the tools to stand on my own feet so that I can help other women.

Unfortunately, after some time, I was unable to continue my studies because of the changes and political situation in Afghanistan, which led to the closure of universities.

Image source, AFP via Getty Images

Men and women took to the streets of the western city of Herat in June, days after local Taliban government officials reportedly began arresting women perceived to be "improperly wearing the hijab".

Taliban police used live fire to disperse the rare protest against the detention of women accused of violating strict Islamic dress codes, witnesses and protesters said.

Medics told the BBC two people died, but did not specify how. A number of others at the protest were injured.

Police in Herat denied there had been any deaths, but have acknowledged they responded to the protest, telling the BBC that officers had "taken action to ensure security and maintain public order".

• Read more on this story

During the republic, I prepared with great enthusiasm and interest and went to TV with energy and hope. I read the news and felt happy that I was present in society and doing what I loved.

I had many hopes and dreams for my future and believed that I could progress and achieve my dreams.

But with the change of regime, my life changed completely. I was away from work and social activities and was forced to stay home. It was as if all the hopes and dreams that I had worked for for years were suddenly buried under the ground.

Today, I spend most of my time at home, preparing bread for my husband, washing clothes, sweeping the house, and doing daily household chores.

Doing housework is valuable in itself, but it is very difficult and burdensome for me because I was a woman who worked outside the home, read the news, had goals, and dreamed about my future.

My greatest pain is that not only did I lose my job, but part of my identity, independence, and hope for the future was taken away from me.

Those same dreams are still alive in my heart, and I hope that one day I will have the opportunity to return to what I love and rebuild the life I dreamed of for myself.