Afghan Women

Since the withdrawal of international forces in 2021, Afghanistan has fallen to last place in global rankings of gender equity and women’s security. A second Taliban regime is violating Afghan women’s basic human rights, segregating them from public life and keeping opportunities and independence out of reach.

Despite the Taliban’s 100 plus decrees targeting women and girls and a lack of international support, Afghan women have demonstrated tremendous resilience, staging weekly protests and opening underground schools for girls.

War Profiteering: Children Bear the Brunt of Wars They Don’t Start

I was a refugee during the Cold War, displaced by the geopolitical struggle between the U.S. and the USSR. Like millions of other children from that time, I carried the heavy weight of that war. My family fled Afghanistan, and in the process, I lost years of regular schooling—years that were supposed to form the foundation of my childhood.

The weight of this suffering has always fallen on children. And just as the world once turned away from the children of Auschwitz, Nagasaki and Trảng Bàng, it turns away from children in Gaza, Afghanistan, Sudan and many other places today. We revisit those historical images as if they were warnings, as if by remembering them we could prevent history from repeating itself. But we haven’t learned. The children of today are still carrying the same burdens—only the names and places have changed.

Ms. Global: Women in Turkey Protest Teen Femicides, South Korea Rules Misogyny as Hate Crime, and More

The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’ most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

Keeping Score: Childcare Costs Top Pre-Pandemic Levels; Sharp Rise in Texas Maternal Mortality; Oct. 3 Marks Latina Equal Pay Day

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week: a Georgia judge strikes down the state’s six-week abortion ban; JD Vance and Tim Walz debate; childcare costs rise after pandemic-era grants expire; Senate Republicans again block IVF protections; school superintendants are overwhelmingly male; Kentucky governor bans conversion therapy; nonbinary adults face violence and discrimination at work; Aisha Nyandoro, founding CEO of Springboard to Opportunities, is on the TIME 100 Next list; University of Pennsylvania professor Dorothy Roberts (host of the Ms. podcast Torn Apart) has won a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “genius” award; and more.

Erased From Public Life: Women Under the Taliban Regime

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Afghanistan has plummeted to last in global rankings of gender equity and women’s security since the withdrawal of international forces in 2021. A second Taliban regime has issued increasingly harsh decrees entrapping millions of women and girls in a system of repression that violates their basic human rights, segregates them from broader society and keeps opportunities and independence out of reach.

But even as the situation for Afghan women grows more dire, the international community is inching closer to recognizing the Taliban as the legitimate leaders in Afghanistan, leaving Afghan women with diminishing hopes that their oppression will end.

(This article originally appears in the Fall 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

Keeping Score: Court Blocks Student Loan Relief Plan; Former N.Y. Cop Sentenced 10 Weekends in Jail After Child Rape; Trump’s ‘Tampon Tim’ Jab Backfires

In every issue of Ms., we track research on our progress in the fight for equality, catalogue can’t-miss quotes from feminist voices and keep tabs on the feminist movement’s many milestones. We’re Keeping Score online, too—in this biweekly roundup.

This week: Kamala Harris reaffirmed her candidacy for president at the DNC; Republican-appointed judges strike down Biden’s student loan relief plan; a new law bans women from speaking in public in Afghanistan; working moms earn just 71 cents per dollar earned by dads; understanding the orgasm gap; gold-medalist boxer Imane Khelif fights back against racist and sexist abuse; new reproductive rights bills signed into law in Illinois; and more.

New Taliban Law Mandates Afghan Women Be Silent and Completely Covered in Public. It’s Time to Codify Gender Apartheid.

Afghan women’s voices and bodies are deemed ‘intimate’ by the Taliban and banned from public.

While the international community condemns these brutal and oppressive restrictions, it now faces a critical challenge: how to effectively respond to the Taliban’s gender apartheid policies and increasing human rights abuses. The need for the international community to codify gender apartheid as a crime against humanity grows more urgent.

Whatever Happened to CEDAW?

It’s been 45 years since the United Nations adopted the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, often described as an international bill of rights for women. Yet some younger feminists haven’t even heard of it.

The vast majority of the world’s nations—96 percent—have ratified CEDAW. The U.S. is not a signatory because it has never made it to the Senate floor for a ratifying vote—making it only industrialized democracy in the world that has yet to ratify it.

(This article originally appears in the Summer 2024 issue of Ms. Join the Ms. community today and you’ll get issues delivered straight to your mailbox!)

‘We Have No Rights’: An Open Letter from an Afghan Girl Living in Fear

My name is Suraya Mohammadi, a girl living in the heart of Afghanistan, a country under Taliban rule. I write this letter with a heart full of pain and hope, a letter that aims to be the voice of all Afghan girls, girls who are enduring an imposed and cruel silence.

Since the day the Taliban regained power, my life and the lives of thousands of other girls have turned into a nightmare. We have been deprived of going to school and continuing our education, from working and having a bright future. Every day, I look out of the small window of my house and wish that I could go back to school, open my books again, and dream of becoming a doctor, an engineer, or a lawyer. But sadly, these dreams have now turned into a nightmare we experience while awake.

Ms. Global: Paris Olympics Near Gender Parity, Afghan Women Banned from Third Doha Conference, and More

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The U.S. ranks as the 19th most dangerous country for women, 11th in maternal mortality, 30th in closing the gender pay gap, 75th in women’s political representation, and painfully lacks paid family leave and equal access to health care. But Ms. has always understood: Feminist movements around the world hold answers to some of the U.S.’s most intractable problems. Ms. Global is taking note of feminists worldwide.

This week: a special report from the Paris Olympics, as well as news from Afghanistan, Iran and more.