The New Reality: Afghanistan Plunged into Digital Darkness

In a devastating escalation of restrictions, the Taliban leadership has recently ordered a near-total **internet shutdown in Afghanistan**, initially targeting fiber-optic connections and later expanding to a wider communications blackout. Citing a need to “prevent immorality,” this move is widely seen by human rights groups and Afghan citizens as a deliberate action to further isolate the country and solidify their authoritarian control.

For Afghan women and girls, already barred from public life, secondary schools, and universities, the internet was not a luxury—it was a necessity. It was the crucial bridge to learning, earning a living, and maintaining a connection to the global community. Its removal represents the loss of their ‘last hope.’

Afghan Women Lose Last Link to Education and Work

The consequences for women’s lives have been immediate and catastrophic:

• Education Cut Off: With girls banned from formal schooling, thousands were relying on virtual classrooms and international online programs to continue their education. The Taliban internet ban has abruptly ended these studies, crushing dreams of higher learning and self-improvement.
• Livelihoods Destroyed: Many Afghan women, who became the sole breadwinners for their families after losing their traditional jobs, established small-scale businesses or found remote work online. This digital lifeline for employment, which included selling handicrafts, providing interpretation, or coding, has been severed, plunging families back into financial precarity.
• Silenced Voices: The internet was the final space where Afghan women could safely advocate for their rights, organize resistance, share their stories with the world, and speak out against gender apartheid. The blackout ensures their complete erasure from the public and digital sphere.

As one young Afghan woman lamented, “They took our schools, our jobs, our freedoms. Now they are taking the internet, the **last way we had to learn and to connect** with the world.”

More Than Censorship: A Targeted Act of Isolation

Digital rights advocates stress that this is more than mere censorship; it is a calculated act of isolation that deepens the existing humanitarian crisis. While costly and unreliable mobile data may still exist in some limited areas, the widespread loss of high-speed fiber-optic connections cripples essential services, including banking and basic communications, affecting all Afghans.

However, the impact is disproportionately borne by women. By eliminating the last avenue for independent thought and action, the regime further entrenches its systematic gender-based discrimination. The move reinforces the fear that this blackout is the beginning of a return to the extreme isolation of the Taliban’s first rule, before the rise of mass communication technologies.

The Global Call to Action

The international community must recognize the profound violation of human rights embedded in this communications blackout. Protecting the **freedom of information in Afghanistan** is now synonymous with protecting women’s basic human rights, including the right to education and work.

The crisis demands more than condemnation; it requires action to pressure the Taliban to restore connectivity and to explore alternative ways to provide satellite internet access as a crucial emergency measure for vulnerable populations, especially women and girls.