Afghan women may have been silenced in their own country, but in December 2025, they were given a very public platform to tell the world about life under the Taliban – The People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan. The tribunal took place in Europe, but Afghans were able to watch the hearings via satellite and online livestreams. Rachel Reid attended the hearings and interviewed many of those involved, bringing AANCAST this special report on the tribunal and its potential ramifications.

Shownotes:

Rachel Reid’s report, Afghan Women Spoke: The People’s Tribunal for Afghan Women listened, was published in December 2025. The indictment, some of the testimony and verdict can be found on the website of the People’s Tribunal for Women of Afghanistan.

The Afghanistan Analysts Network’s vast archive of reports and articles can be found on our website, including a dossier of reports on women’s rights, which was collated in March 2025, Deepening Discrimination: A dossier of reports about Afghan women. For more episodes of AANCast, please subscribe.

Picture: The People’s Tribunal for the Women of Afghanistan’s panel of judges read their final judgment during a session in The Hague. Photo: Rachel Reid, AAN, 11 December 2025.

Don’t forget to subscribe for regular listens from the team at AANCast and check out the Afghanistan Analysts Network website for more great research and analysis.

AAN authors discuss three in depth reports: Kate Clark on what has changed in the year since the introduction of the ‘Vice and Virtue’ law in Afghanistan, Roxanna Shapour discusses a survey on men's views about the restrictions on women and finally, Rachel Reid gives a glimpse into her forthcoming report on alleged war crimes by British special forces in Afghanistan.

Duration: 31 minutes

Shownotes: The reports discussed in this episode are A year of Propagating Virtue and Preventing Vice: Enforcers and ‘enforced’ speak about the Emirate’s morality law and In Pursuit of Virtue: Men’s views on the Islamic Emirate’s restrictions on women. The report on potential war crimes by UK special forces has not yet been published, but you can read a little about it in this wider piece on accountability efforts in Afghanistan, A New Accountability Mechanism for Afghanistan: What the IIM-A can (and cannot) do.

Image: Taliban in front of the Vice and Virtue Ministry. Photo: Wakil Kohsar/AFP, 16 October 2024

Don’t forget to subscribe for regular listens from the team at AANCast and check out the Afghanistan Analysts Network website for more great research and analysis.

Blood feuds have long been a feature of Afghan society, claiming countless lives and perpetuating conflict that sometimes spans generations. In recent decades, however, this has shifted, particularly as a young Afghans have begun to question tribal traditions. Original research by AAN’s Sharif Akram in Khost province suggests that this shift in social norms springs from greater access to education and increased exposure to other cultures and values. His report is read by Rachel Reid.

Sharif Akram’s report, Breaking the Cycle of Centuries-old Violence: A decline in blood feuds in Khost province? was published in August 2025. The report refers to another AAN paper by Lutz Rzehak, Doing Pashto, published in 2011. In October 2025 Sharif Akram published another fascinating paper, The Turbaned Traders: The Taliban take over the urban economy.

Photo: Chief of the Balkhel tribe. A long-standing feud over land and water has persisted between the Balkhel and the Sabari sub-tribes that inhabit eastern Khost and Paktia provinces for decades. Photo: Wakil Kosher/AFP, 22 April 2024

The Afghanistan Analyst’s Network vast archive of reports and articles can be found on our website. For more episodes of AANCast, please subscribe.

Don’t forget to subscribe for regular listens from the team at AANCast and check out the Afghanistan Analysts Network website for more great research and analysis.