In the latest crackdown on Afghan women’s basic freedoms, the Taliban have launched a sweeping campaign of arrests, abductions, and abuse across Kabul—targeting women and girls for their clothing, visibility, and defiance. Human rights defenders are calling the campaign a calculated assault on dignity and a defining feature of Afghanistan’s entrenched system of gender apartheid.

Between July 16 and 19, the Taliban’s “morality police” detained dozens, possibly over a hundred, women and girls in neighborhoods across the capital, according to firsthand testimonies and rights groups. Victims were dragged into unmarked vehicles, transferred to unknown locations, and subjected to physical abuse for alleged violations of hijab mandates—even when fully covered.

While the Taliban claim the arrests are based on “improper hijab,” women describe the campaign as an indiscriminate dragnet of fear. In areas like Dasht-e Barchi, suburbs of Kabul, and Shahr-e Naw, downtown Kabul, women reported loudspeaker warnings, roadblocks, and patrols at shopping centers. Some were detained for wearing slippers without socks. Others, despite wearing hijabs, were taken for not wearing masks.

The United Nations issued a statement on July 22 expressing concern over the arrests and warning that such policies isolate women and girls, erode public trust, and violate fundamental rights. But the statement offered no specifics on the number detained or where they were taken. And it stopped short of proposing any concrete action.

This silence is not new. For nearly four years, the international community has condemned Taliban repression while failing to deliver accountability. The latest arrests mark a grim intensification of policies the UN itself has recognized as “gender apartheid.” Yet the global response remains fragmented and rhetorical.

According to witnesses, Taliban agents in armored vehicles have targeted women near hospitals, restaurants, and buses. Some detainees have reportedly been transferred directly to intelligence directorates for months-long imprisonment. Others face abuse, humiliation, and release only upon paying bribes.

Julia Parsi, a former political prisoner and women’s rights protestor, called it a “major blow to women’s freedom and a sign that the Taliban fear their voices.” She warned: “The girls are being taken from every corner of Kabul. Their only crime is being visible.”

These tactics coincide with the regime’s ongoing enforcement of the “Virtue and Vice” law, which prohibits women from leaving home without a male guardian, speaking loudly, or showing their faces—even in emergencies. The law has essentially criminalized womanhood in public.

Yet, as the crackdown continues, so does resistance. Activists like Parisa Azada have launched campaigns such as “No to the Arrest of Girls,” publishing protest videos and speaking out despite the risk of retaliation. “Our silence, fear, and pain will not last forever,” Azada declared. “We will not be erased.”

While the arrests are taking place in Kabul and reported by some media outlets, in provinces across Afghanistan, acts of flogging, arbitrary detention, and even killings by the Taliban occur more frequently. These violations, carried out away from the media spotlight, are rarely documented or reported.

What is unfolding in Afghanistan is not simply a dress code crackdown; it is a full-scale attempt to eliminate women from public life. Their message is clear: a woman who moves freely, speaks publicly, or resists is a threat to be silenced.

And yet, as this campaign of erasure escalates, the world remains largely silent. Until this reality is confronted with urgency and resolve, Afghan women will continue to pay the price, not because the world does not know, but because it has chosen not to act.

Act Now: Make gender apartheid a crime against humanity—don’t legitimize the Taliban

Sign below to add your name to this urgent call — we're delivering this petition directly to the United Nations Secretary-General and to the President of the General Assembly to make sure our voices are heard at the highest level. Every signature shows the growing public demand for action. The more names we gather, the stronger our message will be.

António Guterres, Secretary-General,

Philémon Yang, President, General Assembly,

I, the undersigned, urge the United Nations to take immediate and historic action to stand with the women and girls of Afghanistan, who are living under a system of gender apartheid instituted by the Taliban regime.

Specifically, I call on the United Nations to:

1. Formally recognize gender apartheid as a crime against humanity in international law and include it in the new Crimes Against Humanity Convention.

2. Refuse recognition and prevent the Taliban from occupying Afghanistan's UN seat, as this would confer legitimacy on a regime engaged in crimes against humanity.

3. Increase humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan, with priority given to women and girls as both distributors and recipients of aid.

4. Ensure Afghan women are meaningfully included in all international discussions on Afghanistan's future—political, economic, social, and humanitarian.

The Taliban has issued nearly 150 edicts systematically erasing women and girls from public life. And preventing girls and women from education, work, and taking away their freedom of movement is not only unjust—it violates their fundamental human rights under international law. 

These actions constitute systematic oppression and domination of women and girls, committed with the intention of maintaining the dominant regime, and therefore amounting to apartheid and persecution under international law.

The United Nations must act with moral clarity and legal resolve.

The eyes of the world—and the hopes of Afghan women—are upon you.

Sincerely,

EMARI PAM | JULY 24

The war on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI), fueled by two of the current administration’s Executive Orders, has sharply increased unemployment among Black women. 

A Financial Times commentary from mid-2025 warns of a steadily declining U.S. job market, citing slowing job growth and shrinking labor force participation. While the national unemployment rate hovered around 4.2% in May, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, this number masks significant disparities, particularly for Black women. Since January 2025, Black women’s unemployment rate has risen each month, increasing by approximately 0.5 to 1 percentage point per month. 

Meanwhile, white women’s unemployment has remained stable at 3.1%. This pattern coincides with DEI policy reversals across both the federal government and private sector. In January, the current administration issued two executive orders (EOs) which dismantled federal DEI programs and removed contractor diversity reporting requirements. These shifts have triggered mass layoffs and stripped away workplace protections, disproportionately affecting Black women. As the National Partnership for Women & Families has stated, "though the administration states that these EOs will help end discrimination, they will likely create more discrimination."

Black women are significantly overrepresented in federal government employment, making them especially vulnerable to policy changes. According to the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, Black women make up roughly 12% of the federal workforce, compared to just 7% of the overall U.S. labor force. Many have historically sought stability and upward mobility in public service jobs, where equal opportunity and diversity mandates have played a critical role in mitigating workplace discrimination.  

However, those protections are disappearing. As a result, departments that once prioritized diverse hiring and retention have halted DEI efforts entirely, leaving Black women disproportionately affected by job cuts and career stagnation. Recent reports indicate that over 69,000 federal positions were slashed by mid-2025, many in roles tied to DEI or held by Black women in administrative, training, and human resources departments.

The disproportionately high unemployment rate among Black women in 2025 reflects deeper structural inequities embedded in the U.S. labor market. A 2024 study found that bias in the hiring process accounts for up to 52% of the racial employment gap, underscoring the persistence of exclusionary practices. The National Partnership for Women & Families warns that without meaningful DEI protections, these disparities are likely to grow, particularly in workplaces that are no longer accountable to inclusive recruitment and advancement policies.  

The steady rise in Black women’s unemployment and the rollback of DEI protections signal a deepening divide in the U.S. labor market, one that economists and civil rights advocates warn cannot ignore. Experts have identified Black women as “economic bellwethers,” whose employment trends often foreshadow broader national shifts. "Nearly 80 percent of Black mothers are breadwinners in their households, making their economic well-being critical to our families, communities, and economy," National Partnership writes. 

Without intentional equity investment, qualified Black women will remain sidelined in the workplace, and the racial wealth gap will widen. Closing this gap requires more than recovery and statistics. It demands long-term commitment to inclusion, enforcement, and economic justice in the future of America.

An Oklahoma anti-abortion nonprofit received a lucrative payout from the State Department of Health in 2024 and is now reporting its impact. 

The Oklahoma Life Foundation (OKLF) advocates for anti-abortion policies and services. Supporting crisis pregnancy centers, also known to abortion rights activists as “fake clinics,” OKLF perpetuates misinformation about pregnancy and contraception. 

Oklahoma’s Choosing Childbirth program was created by Republican lawmakers to fund crisis pregnancy centers, churches, and other anti-abortion groups. First created in 2017, this program was preemptively established to support these organizations ahead of abortion bans post-Dobbs. 

Choosing Childbirth allocated $18 million to the Oklahoma Life Foundation in 2024, equating to one-third of the entire program’s budget.

Acting as a grant-supervising entity, OKLF distributes funds to service providers across the state and is responsible for monitoring and vetting the organizations that receive their funding. Additionally, these nonprofits are exempt from processing through the State Department of Health. 

Paul Abner, the executive director of the Oklahoma Life Foundation, collaborated with lobbyists representing Catholic bishops to sponsor anti-abortion legislation in 2023, including measures that define life at the first detectable heartbeat, effectively criminalizing abortion by imposing felony charges on both providers and patients.

Abner previously stated that OKLF plans to distribute $5.1 million of their funding to support pregnancy centers and churches that he has previously worked with. 

OKLF has zeroed in on Her First Women’s Health, a new telehealth network promoting anti-abortion services, whose mission is described as empowering women “to act heroically to save lives from the evil of abortion.” 

According to CEO Brett Attebery, Her First intends to direct its funding toward advertising and operational expenses. OKLF has allocated nearly $500,000 to the organization, aiming to reach over 75% of Oklahoma’s female population.

Her First’s outreach page, entitled Your Abortion Choice, camouflages itself as a pro-choice resource. Promoting their “medically-accurate abortion information,” this website intentionally misleads women seeking abortions into anti-abortion messaging. 

Attebery told The Frontier, “When women call Her First’s advertised phone number, they’re routed to a call center in Tennessee…a call center agent or registered nurse will assess the woman’s needs and connect them to local organizations for free, including ones listed in an online directory of ‘life-affirming’ providers.”

These misleading services, combined with the state’s near-total abortion ban, leaves women in Oklahoma with little to no choices. With limited oversight and a near-total abortion ban already in place, these state-backed efforts leave Oklahoman women increasingly isolated from comprehensive reproductive care and with fewer real choices than ever before.

SELA TURKEL | JULY 8

The Supreme Court’s conservative majority handed a victory to parents' religious rights in Mahmoud v. Taylor on Friday, June 27, ruling that Montgomery County Public Schools violated their rights by barring parents from opting their children out of LGBTQ+ curriculum.

In late 2022, the Montgomery County Board of Education adopted a new curriculum that included topics such as gender, sexual orientation, race, and body ability. This policy required certain LGBTQ-inclusive books to be available for elementary school-aged students. 

When this curriculum was first introduced, parents were allowed to exempt their children from instruction on the basis of religious objections. A year later, the Montgomery Board of Education reversed this decision, eliminating the opt-out policy.

Lead plaintiffs, Tamer Mahmoud and Enas Barakat, challenged this reversal and filed a lawsuit against Montgomery County Public Schools in May 2023. They argued that the required LGBTQ-inclusive curriculum violated their Islamic faith and constitutional right to free religious exercise. 

Later joined by other parents, the plaintiffs formed Kids First, an association of parents and teachers advocating for child exemption in any curriculum relating to human sexuality. Alongside the Becket Fund, Kids First supported Mahmoud v. Taylor through legal and public education efforts. 

The question before the Supreme Court was whether public schools violate parental rights by requiring elementary school children to participate in instruction on gender and sexuality without the opportunity to opt out for religious reasons. 

Justice Samuel Alito, writing for the majority, stated that this curriculum was designed to “disrupt” children’s thinking about sexuality and gender and “places an unconstitutional burden on the parents’ rights to the free exercise of their religion.”

The Court also ordered the Montgomery Board of Education to provide advance notice to parents whenever any of the contested books are used in school. Additionally, the Board must honor parents’ requests to opt their children out of that instruction. 

In her 38-page dissent, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said that this ruling would cause “chaos” in the public school system. “Today’s ruling threatens the very essence of public education. The Court, in effect, constitutionalizes a parental veto power over curricular choices long left to the democratic process and local administrators,” Sotomayor wrote.

Legal scholars and civil rights groups have noted that this decision may pave the way for additional challenges to inclusive curricula, not only those relating to LGBTQ+ topics, but possibly in areas such as women's history, civil rights, and science education. The ruling highlights a shifting legal landscape, where parental religious objections may increasingly shape public school policy.

While the Court framed the decision as a protection of religious liberty, it also raises complex questions about how public education can balance religious freedom with the goal of fostering understanding, inclusion, and empathy in diverse school communities.

Mahmoud v. Taylor is not just a case about curriculum; it’s a signal of the Court’s growing willingness to reshape the boundaries of public education in response to cultural and religious pressures.

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