On 21 August 2024, almost exactly three years after the Taliban’s return to power in Afghanistan, the de facto authorities published the Law on the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (PVPV Law). A sweeping piece of legislation, the PVPV Law both reinforced existing restrictions on human rights and introduced new ones that – if fully implemented – could affect virtually all aspects of Afghans’ lives under the Taliban. The Law has been sharply criticised by human rights groups for introducing rules restricting a range of human rights, including the freedoms of expression, movement, access to education, and several others. Some of its provisions could either be directly or indirectly used to target certain groups, including along gender lines (affecting primarily women and girls, but also men and boys), as well as religious or ethnic minorities, or the LGBTQ+ community.
This investigation by Afghan Witness aims to provide an overview of how the PVPV Law has been implemented in practice in Afghanistan, drawing on open source research. The report mainly examines the human rights impact of the Law from when it was published until 31 January 2025, but also analyses how public communications by the Ministry of the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice (MPVPV) have evolved since the Law was announced.
Since 21 August 2024, Afghan Witness recorded 130 alleged reports of human rights violations by MPVPV officials or other Taliban in the context of the Law’s implementation through public sources. As an OSINT organisation, Afghan Witness has not been in a position to independently verify these claims – and it is likely that the actual number of violations are higher, given the limitations of OSINT research – but these public reports are nonetheless useful to understand trends since the Law’s implementation. The majority of alleged violations affected women, including through increased restrictions on access to work and other public places, as well as through harassment, beatings and even arrests by PVPV officials for violating the Law’s dress code and mahram (male chaperone) requirements. Men and boys, however, have also faced alleged gendered violations, including beatings or detention for violating provisions against “un-Islamic” clothing or hairstyles.
In addition, AW found that the PVPV Law’s ban on broadcasting images of living beings has already had a profound impact on the Afghan media sector. The ban has been implemented in at least 16 of 34 provinces, leading to several TV stations – primarily local branches of the state broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan – shutting down. These restrictions on the media appear to be gradually implemented throughout the country, possibly reflecting internal Taliban divisions over aspects of the Law.
There have also been several notable shifts in MPVPV’s public communications since the Law was announced. AW analysed content on the Ministry’s official social media channels (X, formerly Twitter, and YouTube), and found a sharp increase in posts about arrests carried out by MPVPV officials. This appears to point to at least an increased effort by the MPVPV to better highlight its work and present it in a positive light. The Ministry has, notably, also recently established an official English-language X account, apparently with a view to international audiences. In addition, MPVPV has since August 2024 increasingly sought to present itself as a defender of “women’s rights” in Afghanistan. Posts mentioning women’s rights-related keywords have increased significantly on both X and YouTube since the Law was announced, often to highlight MPVPV interventions in cases of domestic violence, inheritance rights, or forced marriage. This is possibly a response to recent international accountability developments related to Afghanistan, in particular the ongoing legal processes at the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice, both of which heavily focus on the Taliban’s unprecedented restrictions on the rights of women and girls.