Then this month, the Afghan Education Ministry wrote to schools saying it was removing 51 subject headings from the curriculum, describing them as anti-Islamic.

That was until 2021, when the Taliban returned to power in her native Afghanistan. Now, the pool in Kabul where she used to swim is dry, the building abandoned and its doors bolted against the young women she once coached.

During the @Cam.ac.uk Alumni Festival, @ZahraJoya.bsky.social, Afghan Journalist & founder of @rukhshanamedia.bsky.social, & Laurie Bristow, former UK Ambassador to Afghanistan, will discuss why education is resistance in oppressive regimes. Details & booking: www.hughes.cam.ac.uk/about/events...

the group’s supreme leader had personally taken the decision to allow the removal of women’s photos from the cards on the advice of the Dar al-Ifta, or religious council. rukhshana.com/en/afghan-wo...

Most of the children she sees are moderately malnourished, the legacy of poverty and a series of droughts that have compounded the difficulties of life in a region known for its harsh climate. rukhshana.com/en/how-one-a...

Excited to be part of this amazing event! It’s an honor to speak alongside Sir Laurie and share the stage with such inspiring minds. If you are around and interested, please join us! You could book the tickets for the event! 👇🏿

More than 800 people have been killed in an earthquake in a remote mountainous part of eastern Afghanistan, a Taliban spokesman said on Monday. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/hundreds-...

“Now, I don’t think I can keep going because the risk is too high [but] I don’t know any other work. Our situation is very bad, but in this world there is no one to hear our voice or support us,” she added.

Mahnaz, whose real name we are withholding at her request, is one of around half a dozen women interviewed by Rukhshana Media in Herat who left Afghanistan hoping for a better life and have now returned, penniless and homeless. rukhshana.com/en/we-have-n...

For more than a decade, Radio Nasim had operated as a rare independent and non-partisan voice in central Afghanistan, home to the country’s Hazara ethnic group. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/afghan-ra...

A hospital worker in Afghanistan has told Rukhshana Media how she was abducted by the Taliban, held captive and gang-raped over several days before being abandoned in the desert and left to die, in what she believes was a punishment for doing her job. rukhshana.com/en/the-afgha...

When the Taliban issued a decree barring women from attending universities, “it felt like everything was over,” she says. “I just read books and scrolled Instagram, but I felt like my life had stopped.” Read more: rukhshana.com/en/against-a...

I’m happy to share that Rukhshana Media has now started publishing in Pashto. With this, we now publish in three languages. Farsi, Pashto and English! This challenging journey wouldn’t have been possible without your generous support. Thank you! 💜

🗣️ #WPSWednesday: In #Afghanistan, “most female-led businesses have collapsed, due to Taliban control, ineffective aid & a failure to go beyond symbolic actions that provide little genuine support for women’s enterprises.” @rukhshanamedia.bsky.social rukhshana.com/en/a-market-...

For this story, Rukhshana Media spoke to families and psychologists in Mazar-i-Sharif, which before the Taliban takeover in 2021 was one of Afghanistan’s most prosperous and liberal cities, to assess the impact of these changes on children. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/an-invisi...

Taliban arrest dozens of young Afghan women over hijab rules rukhshana.com/en/taliban-a...

She was a second-year agriculture student when the Taliban barred women from attending university, and could see her career plans disappearing before her eyes. If she couldn’t get a job, she decided, she would set up on her own. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/how-a-you...

ICC issues warrant for Taliban’s supreme leader for persecution of women rukhshana.com/en/icc-issue...

“You filed a complaint with the commission, and I can’t forget that. You shamed me in front of everyone. You questioned my manhood,” she recalls him telling her. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/obsessed-wi…

“I told him, ‘This time, when I return to Zebak, it will be with my degree in hand.’ But instead, I came back with tearful eyes and a heart full of pain,” says Lina as she recalls the day her hopes of a different life were cut short. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/how-afgha...

Taliban arrest Afghan media workers over promotion of feminism rukhshana.com/en/taliban-a...

#Afghanistan 🇦🇫 Exiled journalist @zahrajoya.bsky.social urged global support for the local media who face harsh restrictions under #Taliban rule. "If the world ignores them, their voices, & their stories, may be lost forever." @indexoncensorship.org

Her cracked lips seemed to scream the wounds of her life. Blood seeped from the fissures in her parched skin, and her eyes, like two deep hollows, had sunken into her thin, worn face. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/from-a-ch...

Afghan journalist @zahrajoya.bsky.social reminds the #UK government, on #WorldRefugeeDay, that protecting those forced into exile for their safety is not only a human right, but a defence of truth, history, & freedom itself: www.indexoncensorship.org/2025/06/esca... @rukhshanamedia.bsky.social

Misinformation is terrifying. The media and White House say Trump left the G7 conference early over Middle East tensions, but he denies it. Facts are blurred, stories clash. Who’s telling the truth? Where are we headed?

Hadia worries most about her 13-year-old daughter, fearing the girl could be pushed into an early marriage by her father-in-law. As a victim of forced marriage herself, she knows what that would be like. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/no-one-wi...

Adiba set up her shop in a market in the city of Mazar-e-Sharif that the Taliban set up for women in 2023, promising to promote it through advertising and flyers. But no customers came. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/a-market-...

By @theguardian.com and @rukhshanamedia.bsky.social

Taliban publicly whip 116 people, including 22 women, over five weeks

@rukhshanamedia.bsky.social continues to tell the stories the Taliban don’t want to be heard. In our first "Letter from the Field," @zahrajoya.bsky.social explains what American journalists can learn from her experiences fighting for #pressfreedom in Afghanistan. bit.ly/4kvRfLk

“They didn’t do anything to me during the day, but at night, the real nightmare began,” Safari told a Rukhshana Media reporter by phone from a neighbouring country where she now lives in exile with her three children. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/imprisone...

Over the past nearly four years, our work at Rukhshana has been to closely observe and report what women in Afghanistan are experiencing, and to ensure that what is happening to them does not remain hidden in media silence and indifference. Read more: rukhshana.com/en/misleadin...

It was so nice meeting you Saskia. Thank you for taking the time to speak with me and for the opportunity to speak about my work alongside of my brilliant colleagues!

Laten we de vrouwen in Afghanistan niet vergeten. Maar hoe kunnen we helpen?

Van Houdt worked in Afghanistan for over a decade. he had travelled to 26 provinces of Afghanistan and his work has appeared in publications such as FT Weekend Magazine, Der Spiegel, Stern, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, among others. rukhshana.com/en/interview...

Zakia, 16, from District 18 of Kabul, had a similar experience. She had her first period at age 12 without any prior knowledge or understanding. “I didn’t know what a period was or why it was happening to me. I had never even heard the word ‘period,’” Zakia said. rukhshana.com/en/as-the-wo...

Gisteren sprak ik de Afghaanse journaliste en Time Woman of the Year @zahrajoya.bsky.social over de noodzaak vrouwen in haar land te steunen. De Schoof regering wil onze inzet voor #vrouwenrechten schrappen. Daarom dien ik morgen een motie in om de financiering voor vrouwenrechten te behouden.

In February, the ministry publicly burned about 900 kilograms (about 2,000 pounds) of women’s hair in the capital Kabul, saying it was to “preserve Islamic values and human dignity.”

One student, who spoke to Rukhshana Media on the condition of anonymity, described the daily inspections carried out by school supervisors at the gates of her madrasa in Herat. Read more: rukhshana.org/en/in-afghan...

Hearing Malala and @zahrajoya.bsky.social talk last night was exactly what I - nay we - need in these dark times. A reminder that courageous and principled people do still exist

Her photographs, which she recently showcased in a groundbreaking Kabul exhibition, portray ordinary Afghan women. Together, they tell a story of deprivation and suffering, but also resilience and hope in the face of oppression. Read more: rukhshana.org/en/secret-ka...

Over in Afghanistan, girls and women grapple with one of the harshest forms of gender apartheid ever seen. Still, their hopes for a future where they can fully participate in society remain solid. Read more: rukhshana.org/en/a-century...

Speaking on condition of anonymity, sources said the commander Haji Mohammad Rahmani planned to take a young woman named Abida from Taywara’s village of Darzab Nili to his brother, Mohammad Azim.

A delegation of Afghan women’s rights activists, journalists & legal experts visited South Africa to build global solidarity against gender apartheid in Afghanistan. Supported by MalalaFund,the visit echoed lessons from the anti-apartheid struggle. youtu.be/aBeCdVFIyGI?...

Local resident Homaira said women are expected to rely on God. “The death of a mother or child has become something normal here. Women rely only on God, hoping for the best,” the 32-year-old mother said. Read more: rukhshana.org/en/the-remot...

The United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) presented a strategy at a Doha meeting in February, aimed at helping resolve the country’s political and humanitarian crisis. rukhshana.org/en/unama-is-...

The rare burden of a girl in Afghanistan surviving without dreams rukhshana.org/en/the-rare-...

Bamyan sportswoman grapples with her life full of athletics reduced to home confinement under Taliban rule rukhshana.org/en/bamyan-sp...

The tragic accounts of Bibi and Fatima are just two of countless stories that reflect the dire humanitarian crisis in the southern province of Zabul. Published in collaboration with IndexCensorship Read more here: rukhshana.org/en/the-forgo...