The RAHYAB Initiative launched a report, The Human Rights Situation of Persons with Disabilities (2021-2025), Health, Education, Employment and Access to Justice, on 14 October. Based on interviews with 100 women, girls, men and boys with disabilities, the report reveals how life for millions of Afghans with disabilities (at least 14% of Afghanistan’s population) has sharply deteriorated under Taliban rule.
It documents the collapse of essential services and widespread loss of access to basic rights and how international aid cuts have compounded this situation. It also examines intersection between gender and disability, and the multiple layers of exclusion faced by women and girls with disabilities with many experiencing domestic violence, poverty, and social isolation, with almost no institutional protection.
The report launch in London was moderated by Lyse Doucet, the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent and brought together leading Afghan and international human rights and disability experts including RAHYAB’s founder/Executive Director, Benafsha Yaqoobi and Board member Sadeiq Mohibi; Richard Bennett, UN Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan; Shaharzad Akbar, Founder/Executive Director of Rawadari; Freshta Abbasi of Human Rights Watch; and Professor Tom Shakespeare from the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The speakers reinforced the report’s call for urgent action without which Afghanistan risks losing an entire generation of persons with disabilities to neglect, invisibility, and systemic discrimination.As Benafsha Yaqoobi emphasised “Disability is not just a health issue — it is a human rights issue. When the state denies access to education, health care, and justice, it denies dignity.”
The full report is available on the RAHYAB’S website.
