Marie Sinivee
October 25, 2026
Five years ago, on a warm and hazy morning, the Taliban retook Kabul, the capital of Afghanistan. Soon after that, they dismantled the rights of all the women in Afghanistan. They were stripped of their right to study in secondary school and university, pushed out of many workplaces and largely barred from public life, with activities as ordinary as exercising, driving or singing and speaking loudly becoming restricted or outright forbidden. On that day they lost control over their own lives and bodies.
Half of the women interviewed by the United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, known as UN Women, described leaving their home only once or twice a month because of the severe restrictions on movement, leaving them in near-complete isolation.
With their access to education, employment and public life restricted, Afghan women are increasingly turning to social media to find opportunities for self-expression, as reported by a 2025 investigation from Afghan Witness, a research project from the Centre for Information Resilience that monitors human rights violations in Afghanistan.
The researchers found that women activists mainly use platforms like X and Facebook to voice opposition to the Taliban and organize, which often takes the form of indoor protests.
Though many share political content on Instagram as well, it is seen as a safe space with less abusive content or risk of Taliban reprisals. Of the 100 accounts examined, 86 had been created after the Taliban returned to power in 2021.
A 22-year-old Afghan woman who goes by the handle @da.watan.paighla told The Menton Times that she first started posting this year because of her love of photography. It was a way for her to hold on to dear memories: “We take pictures because we are afraid that one day we may lose the chance to see or experience those moments again. Maybe when we are old, all we will have left are the photos and videos we took when we were young,” she said.
Her first post was of her teacup, but nowadays she usually shares memories from her travels and daily life — nature, historical and religious places, sometimes her cat and occasionally the lives and difficulties of people in her country.
“I especially try to show beauty that people may not normally see. Maybe there are girls like me who cannot travel, or people who do not have the chance to see different parts of Afghanistan. Maybe one of my videos can show them a place they have never seen,” she justified.
When it comes to travel and tourism content, she says that, in her experience, most of the people she sees traveling around Afghanistan and sharing content are men. She believes that this is one of the reasons she cares about sharing her own perspective. “I want people to see Afghanistan through the eyes of a woman who lives here and travels when she has the chance.”
Women emphasized to The Menton Times that, above all, they have been defined by war and statistics.
“I also want people outside Afghanistan to understand that Afghanistan is not only war and violence. When people hear the name Afghanistan, they often think of war, explosions and killings. I do not want to deny those realities. I just want to show that Afghanistan is also nature, history, people, travel, everyday life, pain and beauty.”
Many other women focus on inspirational content or use Instagram to promote their businesses.
The United Nations Development Programme reported in 2025 that only around seven percent of Afghan women were employed outside the home, compared with 84 percent of men.
As such, for some women, social media has become one of the only ways to earn an income without leaving their home.
According to an article published by Le Monde, a 21-year-old woman in Herat started making soap and shampoo at home under the name Gol Magnolia. Other women have set up home-based businesses producing pickles, yogurt, carpets, jewelry and traditional clothing. Many use social media to advertise their products and reach customers they might otherwise struggle to access.
But women still need to navigate difficulties meeting male suppliers and customers, traveling without a male relative, or participating in local markets, have become illegal after the Taliban took control of the country. Social media allows them to advertise their goods from home but cannot remove all the barriers they face in running a business.
Yet even these small spaces of connection can disappear almost overnight.
In September 2025, the Taliban cut fiber-optic internet and mobile phone networks across Afghanistan, reducing connectivity to less than one percent of normal levels, according to Amnesty International. The United Nations warned that the blackout further restricted access to information.
And the women who used the internet simply to talk, share their experiences or see lives beyond Afghanistan’s increasingly restricted public sphere were cut off from that contact too.
The power to shut off the internet for a country run by a terrorist organisation, shows the fragility of one of the last safe spaces for Afghan girls.
Photo Source: Marie Sinivee
