Last week marked five years since the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan — five years of horrific gender apartheid for women and girls, forced deportations of Afghan refugees to Afghanistan, and travel influencers who continue to downplay the human rights abuses of the Taliban regime.
The Taliban’s draconian gendered policies have been consequential for women and girls who have been banned from attending secondary and post-secondary education. Approximately 2.4 million girls are barred from secondary school. More than 1000 schools have closed within the last five years. Women are also banned from teaching boys, which has significantly reduced the number of qualified teachers in the education system.
Afghan women also face exclusion within the labour market and social participation in public spaces. The gendered decrees have aggravated the mental health of women and girls, with many experiencing depression. The gendered restrictions have now amounted to half a decade of women being unequal before the law and an unprecedented calamity that will endanger current and future generations.
While media attention has shifted away from Afghanistan, Taliban leaders have been flying around the world and welcomed to high-level meetings. For instance, German Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s government reached an agreement with the Taliban, which provides Taliban officials control of diplomatic missions in Berlin and Bonn in exchange for deporting Afghan migrants to Afghanistan. This agreement was further adjusted to allow more Taliban officials to work in Germany in exchange for additional deportation flights.
This deal with the Taliban makes Germany the first European Union country that allows Taliban-appointed officials to work inside the country in diplomatic missions. While Germany has not formally recognized the Taliban, Russia became the first country to recognize the Taliban regime. The Foreign Minister of Russia views this relationship as having the potential for “commercial and economic” co-operation in “energy, transportation, agriculture and infrastructure.”
Recently, and for the first time, the European Union also hosted the Taliban in Brussels this June. Brussels defended its decision by noting it as necessary for talks regarding the return of failed Afghan asylum-seekers.
Other countries such as Pakistan, Iran, Austria, and Türkiye are continuing with forced deportation plans of Afghan refugees. More than one million Afghans have been forcibly deported from Iran to Afghanistan, including Afghans born in Iran, since early 2025. This is a mass deportation campaign that has been fueled by xenophobia and racism, which has also resulted in violence against Afghans by Iranian authorities.
At the same time, Afghanistan has faced numerous Pakistani airstrikes that have killed dozens of civilians. During February 2026, Pakistan declared “open war” against Afghanistan for reasons of allying with India and harbouring militant groups. Shortly after, in March, Pakistan bombed a drug rehabilitation hospital that killed more than 400 Afghans, who burned in their beds or were crushed under the building. While Pakistan initially welcomed the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in 2021 and helped create the extremist group in the 1990s, tensions between the Taliban and Pakistan have inevitably heightened in recent years.
These forced deportations, indiscriminate airstrikes, and high-profile meetings with the Taliban are occurring at the same time the Taliban are engaging in systematic violence against women and girls, as well as against dissenting voices, such as journalists.
Afghanistan is still facing a dire humanitarian crisis. Foreign aid to Afghanistan has been curtailed, which has played a role in the deterioration of health services. Over 3.7 million children face acute malnutrition. The forced Afghan returnees also lack housing and stable streams of income, contributing to the crisis.
The Taliban are not a local phenomenon, but a transnational political regime that shapes identity across borders. In my research, I examine the identities of diasporic Afghans in Canada and their relationship to their homeland. In relation to the Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, many of my interviewees spoke about feelings of “statelessness,” “shock,” and “hopelessness.” The takeover has been consequential in constructing monolithic understandings of Afghans as synonymous with the Taliban.
The regime’s control of Afghanistan and institutionalization of gender apartheid impact how the Afghan diaspora in Canada understands and responds to being racialized, but also to the repressive conditions in Afghanistan. The geopolitics of Afghanistan holds transnational consequences for its diaspora in relation to stereotypes against Afghans, admission of Afghan refugees, and the spreading of misinformation from tourists who spread Taliban propaganda.
With the second Taliban takeover of Afghanistan, there has been a surge in “extreme tourism,” where influencers highlight “authentic cultural experiences,” while sanitizing the image of the Taliban. Tourism aids in boosting the economy of Afghanistan, but much of the discourse that is spread by these influencers serves to neglect the legacies of systemic violence and gender apartheid, as well as whitewash gender apartheid and the human rights violations.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants for two higher-ranking Taliban officials for crimes against humanity, specifically gender persecution against women, girls, and gender nonconforming people.
Travel is a privilege, and many influencers who visit Afghanistan for a few days or weeks can travel freely to places and engage in activities that are not available to the country’s citizens or to individuals of its diaspora. In doing so, many tourists overlook or undermine the real day-to-day struggles and restrictions that Afghans face. The pain and suffering of the people should not be normalized under the pretence of scenic beauty or authentic travel.
Ferdouse Asefi is a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology at the University of Toronto.
