The Taliban’s New Criminal Code Makes Second-Class Status the Law for Women and Girls
Earlier this month, without warning, the Taliban sent a new Criminal Code to courts across Afghanistan and ordered it into effect. The 119-article document replaces due process with a system built on religious hierarchy, moral policing, and unequal punishment. For Afghan women and girls, it formalizes their status as second-class citizens under the law.
The code removes core legal protections. It does not recognize the right to a lawyer, the right to remain silent, or safeguards against forced confession. Confession and testimony are treated as primary evidence, without addressing how they are obtained.
In the code, crimes are framed as “sin,” “corruption,” or “immorality.” That vagueness hands extraordinary power to Taliban officials to decide, at will, what counts as a crime.
For women, already confined by strict rules on how to dress, move, and exist in public, it means that ordinary life can, itself, be turned into evidence.
According to the code, women can be punished for leaving their husband’s home without permission. Activities such as “dancing” or “watching dances” are criminalized without definition. Violence against children is prohibited only if it causes severe physical injury. Fathers are permitted to punish children, including for missing prayers.
Under Article 32, a husband who beats his wife faces a maximum of 15 days in jail — and only if the violence meets a narrow definition of “obscene force,” limited to fractures, open wounds, or visible bruising, and if the woman is able to prove the abuse in court. Article 58 sentences women accused of apostasy — leaving Islam — to life in prison, along with 10 lashes every three days until they return to the faith. The code sets out no explicit penalties for male apostates.
The code divides society into four classes: religious scholars and high-ranking figures, elites such as merchants and tribal leaders, the middle class, and the lower class. Each category is subject to different procedures and punishments, with the lowest class explicitly subject to threats and physical punishment.
Women, excluded from religious and political authority, fall overwhelmingly into the lowest tier. Their legal vulnerability is built into the structure of the system.
The code recognizes only followers of the Hanafi school as legitimate Muslims and criminalizes leaving it or encouraging others to follow a different interpretation. It further recognizes slavery as its own legal category, repeatedly distinguishing between “free” people and “slaves.” This contradicts international law, which bans slavery in all forms.
In a statement issued on Jan. 28, the Taliban’s Ministry of Justice warned that “opposing these laws is equivalent to opposing Sharia,” framing any criticism of the new code as a religious offense and placing those who challenge it at risk. Neda Mohammad Nadim, the group’s higher education minister, has branded critics of the code “infidels,” amid mounting opposition from rights groups, legal experts, and some religious scholars.
The code comes as enforcement against Afghan women and girls intensifies. A United Nations report found that Taliban officials are now ordering private businesses and health clinics to turn away women who arrive without a male guardian. Women are already barred from becoming doctors and, in some regions, are forbidden from being treated by men, leaving them with no access to medical care at all. UN Women warns that in 2026, maternal deaths will rise by 50 percent, pregnancies among adolescent girls by 45 percent, and child marriage by 25 percent.
These new measures intersect with the Taliban’s ban on secondary and higher education for girls and young women. As a result, nearly 80 percent of Afghan women are not in education or employment. Nearly half of the country’s potential workforce has been removed from economic life.
“We are not just headlines. We are not just tragic stories to be read and forgotten. We are real. We are here. And we are desperately pleading for a chance,” a young Afghan woman told More to Her Story under the condition of anonymity. “They stole our future, silenced our voices, and buried our dreams. But we refuse to let them win.”
Last week, Afghan media reported that a six-year-old girl in Helmand province was sold by her father into marriage to a 45-year-old man who already has two wives. According to Amu TV, the Taliban intervened only to postpone the marriage, saying that the girl could be married at age nine, in line with the tribal practice of walwar, in which girls are priced based on factors such as age, virginity, and family status.
The Taliban’s new code enshrines women and girls as second-class citizens under the law. Combined with existing bans on education, work, and basic movement, it creates a system in which women and girls have no equal standing before the courts, no legal protection, and where violence against them is not only permitted but effectively sanctioned.