“I feel that the women of my country live in a cage that grows tighter every day. This cage is different from a true prison, but now I understand the difference between a cage and a prison. From here, I can only tell their suffering.”
With these words, Sosan Mirzada, an Afghan refugee in Spain, captures the daily oppression faced by women in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.
Sosan explains that the closure of schools and the ban on women working forced her and her family to leave their homeland. “From the moment they closed universities and schools and told us that women could no longer study or work, we decided to leave the country we loved so much, full of hopes and dreams.”
But even after arriving in Spain, she faced new challenges. Obtaining official documents and adapting to a new country increased the vulnerability she had already experienced in Afghanistan.
“I couldn’t stay in Afghanistan. They would have killed me for speaking, for being a woman, for daring to exist,” says Khadija Amin, an Afghan journalist also living in Spain, who faced similar threats.
Khadija’s escape required careful planning, secret networks, and a dangerous journey through neighboring countries before she could reach Spain. Once there, she struggled to learn Spanish, navigate the asylum system, and rebuild her professional identity without access to her original credentials.
Sahar, a young Afghan mother, describes similarly severe restrictions on daily life. “I could not study, could not work, could not even walk outside without a male guardian. The world I knew disappeared overnight.”
Fleeing with her children, she depended on family members and informal diaspora networks to reach Spain. Yet even there, she encountered bureaucratic barriers: proving persecution, obtaining official documentation, and securing basic necessities left her in a constant state of vulnerability.
Together, these testimonies reveal that Afghan women face not only persecution and systemic restrictions at home, but also immense challenges in rebuilding their lives abroad.
Conditions in Afghanistan—political fragmentation and Taliban control
Afghanistan today is marked by deep political fragmentation, ethnic divisions, and the harsh control of the Taliban, explains José Pérez, an intelligence and risk analyst for national security.
The country’s rugged geography and weak central governance make effective administration nearly impossible, while the Taliban have rapidly consolidated power, imposing increasingly radical restrictions on women’s lives, as seen in the cases of Sosan, Sahar, and Khadija.
Systematic violations of human rights, especially gender-based persecution, have left women without access to education, employment, or basic freedoms, often under threat of severe punishment or death, confirms Victoria Caprile, a feminist lawyer and human rights defender.
In fact, since January 2026, the Taliban’s new penal code has effectively legalized domestic violence, allowing husbands to physically punish their wives as long as it does not cause broken bones or open wounds.
According to Pérez, geopolitical and economic interests, such as control over Afghanistan’s minerals and strategic trade routes, have further complicated the situation. External powers including China, Russia, and the United States often prioritize regional influence over human rights enforcement.
The Taliban’s recognition by some states, coupled with these strategic interests, limits the ability of international actors to intervene or apply pressure to protect women. Europe largely treats the Taliban as interlocutors, leaving Afghan women with little recourse, while slow-moving international mechanisms make human rights enforcement nearly impossible, Pérez added.
Afghan women face not only persecution and systemic restrictions at home, but also immense challenges in rebuilding their lives abroad.
Caprile highlights the practical consequences of this reality: even when women flee to countries like Pakistan, Iran, or Spain, they face bureaucratic delays and must prove persecution—something often logistically or legally unfeasible due to Taliban control over documentation and communication.
These combined factors have created a system of fear, isolation, and social control, trapping Afghan women between an oppressive regime at home and slow, complex international processes abroad.
The first obstacles: Leaving and seeking asylum
One of the first barriers Afghan women face is dependence on male relatives, particularly husbands, to file asylum applications on their behalf. This increases vulnerability and limits women’s agency.
María José Rodríguez Becedas, co-founder of NetWomening, an organization that supports the integration of Afghan women in Spain, explains, “There are women who are not the ones applying for international protection for themselves—it has been requested by their husband.”
In these cases, women often become legally invisible in the asylum process, forced to rely on a spouse to navigate complex bureaucratic procedures. Rodríguez Becedas emphasizes that these women remain dependent on their spouses to manage these processes.
Another major obstacle is that many Afghan women must flee through neighboring countries before applying for asylum in Spain, which creates further complications.
Rodríguez Becedas notes, “Normally they come mostly through Iran or Pakistan, and the only thing they can request is a humanitarian visa to come to Spain to apply for asylum.”
Pérez highlights the structural difficulties of this route. “The simple fact that they have to travel to these neighboring countries to start the asylum process creates a bottleneck due to the enormous number [of cases], sometimes taking up to two years before even getting a first appointment.”
This reliance on third countries prolongs legal uncertainty, as the diaspora in Spain must navigate extremely complex bureaucratic hurdles just to begin the process.
Caprile adds, “These embassies are obviously collapsed due to the number of people waiting for a first appointment, which can take up to two years, leaving people in legal limbo.”
The burden of proving persecution
Even with European Union jurisprudence recognizing sex and nationality as grounds for protection, Afghan women are still expected to provide tangible proof of persecution, a requirement that is often impossible to meet under Taliban control of documentation and communication.
The women interviewed described fleeing under immediate threat, often without the ability to carry documents or preserve evidence. This leaves them especially vulnerable to rejection.
Rodríguez Becedas, who is also a lawyer, describes this as one of the most significant barriers to accessing asylum.
“They normally flee the country without documentation and without evidence… it is difficult because they have nothing to show when they arrive at the embassy,” she explains.
Even with European Union jurisprudence recognizing sex and nationality as grounds for protection, Afghan women are still expected to provide tangible proof of persecution.
EU legal framework
The European Union offers a formal legal framework for the protection of Afghan women, ensuring that gender and nationality are considered in asylum procedures. Caprile highlights that “we already have jurisprudence from the European Court of Justice stating that it is sufficient to take into account the sex and nationality of Afghan women to access asylum.”
This 2024 ruling is binding for Spain as an EU member state and establishes a clear legal foundation for protection.
Despite this, administrative and structural delays create a significant gap between legal recognition and practical access. Caprile emphasizes that “cases can take up to two years before even starting, leaving people in legal limbo with limited possibilities of completing the procedure through the Spanish consulate.”
She also notes that the large number of asylum seekers continues to overwhelm consular services, delaying even the first appointment.
Pérez situates these challenges within a broader geopolitical context. He explains that there is less protection for Afghan women regarding their social, economic, and educational rights.
“The diaspora can function, but there is no right of asylum because you are dealing with a recognized government,” he says. The recognition of the Taliban regime by many international actors indirectly complicates the application of EU protections, leaving Afghan women vulnerable despite formal legal safeguards.
The result is a persistent gap between the promises of European jurisprudence and the lived reality of women trying to access protection amid prolonged legal uncertainty.
Rebuilding life in Spain
Even after receiving protection, integration in Spain presents another set of challenges.
Language and cultural barriers significantly limit the social and professional integration of Afghan women. Rodríguez Becedas explains that learning Spanish is often the first major obstacle.
“The difficulty of not knowing the language is enormous when it comes to finding work or being able to study in Spain. The few classes offered by government programs are completely insufficient,” she says.
Limited language instruction in refugee and asylum reception programs leaves many women unprepared to access education, employment, or public services. And the lack of recognition for Afghan educational and professional qualifications further hinders employment.
Pérez explains that even highly trained women cannot transfer their credentials. “There is no recognition of titles. Many documents were destroyed when the Taliban took power, so they cannot have their degrees recognized here in Spain. They have to start from scratch,” he laments.
As a result, women who were professionals in Afghanistan are often forced to rebuild their careers from the beginning.
Islamophobic discrimination further affects housing, employment, and daily life, adding another layer of vulnerability. Caprile observes, “Islamophobia keeps them in situations of vulnerability and discrimination. Whether they wear the hijab or not, this can affect renting, employment, so many parts of daily life.”
