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Five years ago, Laila was 12 and had just entered seventh grade when the Taliban closed secondary schools to girls. Formal schooling ended for her, but her education did not.

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A few months later, she found a secret school in her neighbourhood.

Laila is now in the 12th grade at “Invisibles” and is close to graduating. She says the greatest difficulty over the past five years has been the fear that the school could be discovered, students arrested and classes shut down.

Yet those years have also given her opportunities to learn.

She told Afghanistan International: “My intellectual skills have developed greatly, I understand my lessons better, and I have learnt tailoring, which I can use to earn an income.”

For Parasto Hakim, founder of the “Invisibles” initiative, remaining hidden is part of the price girls must pay to continue their education in Afghanistan.

The Invisibles Are Many

Hakim says the programme began with one secret school in September 2021, shortly after the Taliban returned to power. Today, she says, the network operates in 16 provinces, with 35 schools, more than 45 teachers and 1,830 students.

But for Hakim, “Invisibles” is not simply the name of schools that must remain out of the Taliban’s sight.

Girls leave home in the morning without people around them knowing they are going to school, while teachers give lessons behind closed doors in ordinary homes.

Hakim says what initially began as a security necessity gradually became part of the network’s identity.

“Every day, a girl wakes up early in the morning, goes invisibly to school and studies invisibly. The teacher teaches invisibly, and the team works invisibly.”

She says that very condition has become one of the network’s strengths.

“They wanted to define us as a weak force, but we used our invisibility to show what power looks like.”

UNICEF says more than 2.6 million girls in Afghanistan have been deprived of secondary education since 2021. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where secondary and higher education are banned for girls and women.

Under these conditions, “Invisibles” is trying to preserve part of girls’ education outside the formal system.

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Students Who Became Teachers

Yalda, 18, graduated from an “Invisibles” school last year with high marks. Her name has been changed for security reasons.

But graduation was not the end of her journey. After finishing school, she set up a class in her area of Kabul, brought together dozens of children and asked the “Invisibles” initiative for help obtaining books and other educational materials.

According to Hakim, initiatives by students and teachers themselves have helped the network expand. More than 2,000 teachers across Afghanistan have also expressed willingness to join the programme and continue teaching their students.

Yalda says that after graduating, she was given the opportunity to work as a teacher through the same school where she had studied.

“After graduating, I got the opportunity to work as a teacher through the same school I had graduated from.”

She says the experience taught her that education is not only a right but something capable of changing lives.

Hosi, another student at one of the schools, had also lost hope of continuing her education when girls’ schools were closed.

“It was unbelievable that we could find an underground school, study there for five years and celebrate our graduation.”

She says security concerns were always present, but continuing their education kept them from remaining at home without learning.

“It saved us from illiteracy. We did not end up staying at home as illiterate girls doing only housework.”

Hosi also began working as a teacher with “Invisibles” after graduating.

Alongside academic subjects, the initiative’s schools teach skills such as carpet weaving, tailoring, digital skills, jewelry-making, design and art.

Hakim says the aim is to help girls use these skills to earn an income.

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Education Against a Restricted Future

UNICEF has warned that girls who are out of school face greater risks, including early marriage, child labour and violence.

UNICEF data shows that around 29% of Afghan women aged 20 to 24 were married before turning 18. However, the data alone does not show that child marriage has increased since the Taliban returned to power in 2021.

Hakim says that after universities were closed to women and restrictions intensified, the responsibility of “Invisibles” went beyond academic education.

“Our responsibility went far beyond simply teaching. We had to help girls protect themselves from forced marriage, imposed decisions and economic dependence.”

Maryam, a teacher whose name has been changed for security reasons, stayed at home for around six months after the Taliban returned to power. She says the isolation had a negative effect on her mental wellbeing.

Later, children from the neighbourhood came to her home and asked her to teach them. Maryam gradually gathered more students and later began working with “Invisibles”.

She says that during five years of secret teaching she has “felt afraid every day”, but what encouraged her to continue was seeing hope in her students’ eyes.

“The main reason I continued was seeing hope in the girls’ eyes.”

Maryam has now graduated one group of students and is preparing for the graduation of a second.

Saba, 15, another student at the schools, says secret education has given her hope that she can achieve her future goals.

“Every time we fell, our teacher helped us stand up again, stronger than before.”

She says she wakes up every morning motivated to go to school and has learnt from her teachers to set ambitious goals for her future.

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A Secret Classroom, a New Choice

Yalda says her secret school was shut several times, but she eventually graduated in 2026.

After graduating, she considered herself one of the luckiest girls in Afghanistan. But that feeling led her to ask why other girls should not have the same opportunity.

That is why she started a secret class for younger girls.

“This experience taught me that education is not only about building the future; it can also change who we are today.”

Yalda now hopes to continue her studies at a leading university abroad and plans to apply for a scholarship.

Hakim says that alongside academic teaching, “Invisibles” holds reading sessions on human rights, human dignity, justice and respect.

She says the aim is to strengthen girls’ ability to defend their rights within their families and communities, particularly at a time when they are being excluded from formal education.

This part of the initiative did not exist when the programme began. Hakim says her own view of the project has also changed over the past five years.

“When I started this work, I thought there was no way the Taliban could last five years. I thought perhaps I only needed to buy the girls some time; perhaps the world would do something to save us.”

But five years later, the secret schools are still operating.

Hakim says Afghan women have, on the one hand, been pushed to the margins by the country’s rulers and, on the other, have felt that the world does not sufficiently see their suffering.

“We were invisibles who were suffering, but somehow we kept going, just as we always have.”

For Hakim, continuing the initiative is no longer only about keeping classrooms open. It is about preserving the possibility of choice for a generation of girls whose usual paths through life have largely been closed.

“If a woman decides to change her future, she can do it even invisibly.”

For Laila, who has spent five years fearing that her school might be discovered and that she could be arrested, continuing her education means preserving the possibility of choosing a different future.

For Yalda, that choice has now taken another form: she is giving younger girls the same opportunity that was once given to her.

The schools may be invisible, and the teachers may work in silence, but inside these small classrooms, girls are preparing for a future they do not want an education ban to define for them.

Hakim says the struggle for the basic rights of women and girls does not always require taking to the streets or appearing in front of cameras.

“The struggle for basic human rights can be invisible and secret.”

Five years after girls’ schools were closed, these small classrooms remain open, out of the Taliban’s sight and with the hope that one day girls will no longer need to be invisible simply to learn.

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According to The Times of Central Asia, the CSTO exercises began on 12 September and will continue until 19 September in the Koktal area of Kazakhstan’s Zhetysu region.

The organisation’s rapid reaction forces are training in mountainous and desert terrain to counter the infiltration of armed groups into border areas.

The exercises come as Russia and Tajikistan have again raised concerns about the activities of armed groups in Afghanistan.

Russian Defence Minister Andrei Belousov said on 8 September that Moscow was paying particular attention to strengthening security along the Tajikistan-Afghanistan border.

Following several attacks from Afghan territory late last year, Tajikistan called on other CSTO members to provide additional assistance to protect its border. Five Chinese citizens and two Tajik border guards were killed in attacks in late 2025.

In this context, CSTO Secretary-General Taalatbek Masadykov said on 28 August that the first shipment of equipment and weapons to strengthen the border would be sent to Tajikistan this autumn.

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation is a military and security alliance comprising Russia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Armenia. Tajikistan is the only CSTO member that shares a border with Afghanistan.

Despite growing engagement between Central Asian countries and the Taliban since the group returned to power in August 2021, the presence of armed groups in Afghanistan, particularly ISIS-Khorasan, remains a shared security concern for CSTO members.

According to UN estimates, around 15,000 to 20,000 fighters linked to roughly 20 armed groups are present in Afghanistan. Russia has estimated their number at up to 23,000.

The Times of Central Asia wrote that the Taliban was regarded as a serious threat to Central Asian countries in the late 1990s, but the current CSTO exercises are not directed against the group.

Russia has recognised the Taliban government, while even Tajikistan has gradually established channels of communication with the group.

CSTO members are now more focused on groups such as IS-Khorasan. The group claimed responsibility for the 22 March 2024 attack on Crocus City Hall near Moscow, which killed more than 140 people.

The infiltration of armed groups, drug trafficking and insecurity along Afghanistan’s borders remain among the CSTO’s main security concerns.

Asked in an interview with senior BBC international correspondent Lyse Doucet whether the message from the international community was reaching Taliban leaders, Muttaqi said it was, and that all countries had called on the Taliban to allow Afghan girls to return to school.

However, he added that Afghanistan should not be viewed solely through a Western lens.

Muttaqi also acknowledged during the interview that the closure of girls’ schools remains a problem.

At the same time, the Taliban foreign minister said that the Western perspective should not be the standard by which Afghanistan is judged, stressing that not everything has been banned for women.

Five years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, the country’s human rights crisis has become increasingly structural and systematic.

While Taliban officials describe the closure of schools above sixth grade and universities to girls as temporary and until further notice, human rights activists and international organisations have described the policy as “gender apartheid” and the deliberate exclusion of more than half of society.

Taliban claims versus the human rights situation

In his interview with Lyse Doucet, Muttaqi claimed that around three million girls were still studying at primary schools and religious seminaries, while tens of thousands of women continued to work in healthcare, education and small businesses.

Citing these figures, he sought to argue that the international community was overlooking realities inside Afghanistan.

However, reports by the UN Human Rights Council and the UN special rapporteur on Afghanistan present a different picture.

Denial of education

More than 2.5 million girls have been deprived of their basic right to secondary and higher education.

Afghanistan remains the only country in the world where girls are barred from education beyond primary school.

Restrictions on employment and financial independence

The dismantling of independent institutions, restrictions on women working for the United Nations and non-governmental organisations, and the closure of businesses such as women’s beauty salons have severely damaged women’s financial independence.

International figures indicate that women’s formal employment has fallen below 10%.

Restrictions on freedom of movement

Successive orders imposing mandatory dress rules and banning travel without a male mahram have severely restricted women’s access to public spaces.

Systematic human rights violations and lack of accountability

Human rights concerns in Afghanistan under Taliban rule extend beyond restrictions on women.

Multiple reports by human rights organisations have documented arbitrary arrests, torture, retaliatory killings of former government security personnel, and severe repression of protesters and journalists.

Civil society activists say the central issue is not only the restrictions themselves, but also the absence of a transparent legal and judicial framework through which victims can seek justice.

Courts operate according to strict interpretations without meaningful accountability, while oversight bodies such as the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission have been completely dissolved.

Women who have protested in the streets of Kabul and other cities have faced harsh responses, ranging from night-time arrests and forced confessions to psychological pressure on their families.

Critics say this approach shows that even the fundamental right to peaceful assembly and protest has effectively been denied.

Diplomatic deadlock and international response

The international community and the United Nations have repeatedly said that recognition of the Taliban government is directly linked to improvements in human rights and an end to the repression of women.

The Taliban, however, describes women’s rights as an internal matter connected to traditional and religious values.

UN experts argue that this justification is being used to disregard Afghanistan’s international obligations under human rights treaties.

The human rights crisis in Afghanistan has also deepened the country’s humanitarian and economic problems.

By excluding women from education and economic life, sustainable development has been severely undermined, while a new generation of girls is growing up without a clear prospect for the future.

What Taliban officials describe as a temporary suspension is viewed by human rights observers as a deliberate policy aimed at confining women to their homes and removing them from public life.

They warn that this approach poses profound challenges to Afghanistan’s international legitimacy and its social future.

According to the sources, Agha Jan was taken to Kandahar police headquarters following his arrest.

Sources said the school was surrounded after several people described as guests entered the premises. Their identities remain unclear, and it is not known whether they were Afghan citizens or foreign nationals.

Mutasim Agha Jan is a well-known former senior Taliban figure whose relations with the group’s leadership have been strained for years. After the Taliban returned to power, he came back to Afghanistan from Istanbul with the guarantee of Taliban defense minister, Yaqoob Mujahid.

This is not the first time the Taliban has detained Agha Jan. In 2022, Taliban intelligence forces raided his home in Kabul and confiscated some of his personal property.

The Taliban also detained Mutasim Agha Jan on 16 April this year before later releasing him.

The Taliban has not yet commented on the reason for the latest detention of its former senior member.

Who is Mutasim Agha Jan?

Mutasim Agha Jan was a long-standing and influential Taliban figure. During the Taliban’s first period in power, from 1996 to 2001, he served as the group’s finance minister and was considered close to its former leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar.

His name was added to the United Nations sanctions list in 2001.

After the fall of the Taliban government, Agha Jan remained within the group’s leadership structure and for a period headed the Taliban’s political committee.

Reports indicate that he remained an important political figure within the Taliban until around 2009, but gradually developed differences with parts of the leadership over the group’s strategy, particularly the issue of negotiations with the Afghan government.

Agha Jan was among former Taliban officials who openly supported a political settlement to end the war.

He called for the formation of an inclusive political system in Afghanistan and, in the years after 2010, took part in several initiatives and meetings related to peace negotiations.

These positions were opposed by sections of the Taliban, and the group’s leadership at times stressed that Agha Jan and his associates did not officially represent the Taliban in negotiations.

Mutasim Agha Jan was seriously wounded in an armed attack in Karachi, Pakistan, in 2010.

He later left Pakistan and lived for periods in Turkiye and Arab countries, while continuing efforts to promote talks with the Afghan government.

His support for negotiations and growing distance from the Taliban leadership’s official position eventually made him a distinct and somewhat marginal figure among the group’s former senior leaders.

Mujahid described the report as propaganda against the Taliban and said there was no evidence proving the presence of foreign groups in Afghanistan.

He told domestic media that such claims were being made by what he described as biased and intelligence-linked circles seeking to fuel tensions and create scenarios of regional insecurity.

Mujahid has previously rejected UN Security Council reports about the presence of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.

At the same time, Hamdullah Fitrat, the Taliban’s deputy spokesperson, also responded to the Washington Post report by denying to Taliban-affiliated media that foreign groups, including al-Qaeda, were present in Afghanistan.

He said groups that had operated in connection with past wars no longer needed to remain in Afghanistan because circumstances had changed. He also described claims about their activities as propaganda.

In a report published on 12 September, the Washington Post said al-Qaeda and its affiliates had established at least eight training centres in Afghanistan since the Taliban returned to power.

The report said Islamist groups, including ISIS-Khorasan, had also opened new training facilities and that armed groups were present in at least 14 provinces across Afghanistan.

According to the newspaper, the new al-Qaeda centres provide training in the use of weapons, explosives and guerrilla warfare tactics, while there are also signs of instruction in encryption, artificial intelligence, drones and other emerging technologies.

A member of the UN monitoring team also estimated that al-Qaeda had around 100 core members in Afghanistan.

A UN Security Council report also said cooperation between al-Qaeda, the Taliban and Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan had increased, and that training camps run by the groups in Afghanistan were focused on training local fighters and TTP members.

The report also said al-Qaeda continued to operate covertly in Afghanistan and that commanders from the network were travelling into the country.

According to the Security Council report, al-Qaeda members in Kunar province had been involved in training TTP members in suicide bombing techniques, while the network also served as an adviser and trainer for allied armed groups.

The Taliban has consistently rejected UN reports about al-Qaeda’s presence and activities in Afghanistan. However, Security Council reports in recent years have said ties between the Taliban and al-Qaeda remain intact, that the network operates training centres in the country and that it cooperates with regional armed groups.