Afghans returning to their country face “serious violations” of their human rights committed by the Taliban de facto authorities, according to a United Nations report published on Thursday amid mass deportation campaigns from Iran and Pakistan. These abuses include threats, cases of torture, mistreatment and arbitrary arrest and detention, according to the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR).
The report said these violations were committed against Afghans “based on their profile” and targeted women, media workers and civil society members as well as individuals affiliated with the former government that fell in 2021 and its security forces, despite the Taliban’s claims that such individuals benefit from an amnesty. “No one should be returned to a country where they are at risk of being persecuted because of their identity or personal history,” said Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.
“In Afghanistan, this situation is even more pronounced for women and girls, who are subjected to a series of measures that amount to persecution solely on the basis of their gender.” Since 2023 and the start of large-scale deportation campaigns launched by Iran and Pakistan, millions of Afghans have returned to their country. In 2025 alone, more than 1.8 million people have returned to Afghanistan, 1.5 million of them from Iran.
The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, recently estimated that the total could reach three million by the end of the year, returning to a country facing a severe humanitarian crisis. The situation of women forcibly returned is particularly dire. A former television journalist, who left the country after the Taliban’s takeover in August 2021, described how, after being involuntarily returned to Afghanistan, she saw her prospects vanish.
“I am very worried for my personal safety and feel immense frustration with the current situation imposed on women in [my province]. I can unequivocally say that I am effectively under house arrest. There are no job opportunities, no freedom of movement and no access to education – whether to learn or to teach – for women and girls,” she testified.
Source: The UN News
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