The Media Line: Viral Video Claiming Taliban Banned Girls’ Education a Myth as Influencers Flock to Afghanistan 

Viral Video Claiming Taliban Banned Girls’ Education a Myth as Influencers Flock to Afghanistan 

Restrictions on women vary in Afghan cities, but don’t prevent influencers from visiting the controversial nation 

By Giorgia Valente/The Media Line 

As Afghanistan enters 2026, the following facts are no longer disputed: girls remain barred from secondary education, women are excluded from universities, and the country stands alone globally in enforcing such sweeping educational restrictions on women and girls. According to UNICEF, 2.2 million girls are currently deprived of their right to secondary education, with hundreds of thousands added since 2024. UNESCO has warned that Afghanistan is the only country in the world where girls are systematically denied both secondary and higher education, a policy now entering its fifth year. 

What is contested is language and narrative. In late January 2026, claims spread rapidly online that the Taliban had issued a “permanent ban” on girls’ education, allegedly confirmed by the Ministry of Interior. The framing circulated primarily through short clips and reels on Instagram, often stripped of context. Whether this wording reflects a new decision or the repackaging of older statements remains unclear. 

Ali M. Latifi, the Kabul-based Asia editor at The New Humanitarian, says one of the most widely shared videos was not recent at all. 

“It’s an interview from 2024. It’s the same line. It says, ‘We’re studying it, we’re trying to figure out through the Sharia if there is any religious objection.’ It’s a three-and-a-half-minute clip, and someone took about 20 seconds of it out of context. It doesn’t even say education is permanently banned,” he said to The Media Line. 

“If you listen to the full clip, it’s very standard language: ‘If there are objections, we’ll deal with them. If there are no objections, we’ll see how to do it within Islamic and Afghan cultural guidelines.’ And then he says, ‘It’s an ongoing process. When we have something to tell you, we’ll tell you.’ That clip is from two and a half years ago,” he added. 

For Nassir Ul Haq Wani, dean of research and development and professor at the School of Graduate Studies in Kabul, the key issue is not a single announcement but the uneven exercise of power. 

“I think that statement could be partially true. The restrictions exist already, but the severity or the intensity of them varies throughout time. In any case, this will apply for common people mostly, not to the political elites affiliated with the current government,” he told The Media Line. 

Muhammad Akram, a researcher focusing on Afghanistan, Pakistan, and extremist online rhetoric, places both the ban and the viral framing around it inside a tightly controlled information environment. 

“What we see on social media doesn’t have to be correct on the ground. Many times, only a very small fraction of reality comes online, and there is a lot of confusion. Many of these issues don’t even come into the media anymore, because local media is very much controlled by the Taliban,” he told The Media Line. 

All three interviews confirm that girls’ education effectively ends at the primary level, but the precise cutoff—and what follows—differs depending on location, enforcement, and social context. 

Akram describes a sharply restricted system: “Right now, schools for girls are only until the fifth grade. Even there, boys and girls are segregated. If a school doesn’t have enough rooms, they separate them by shifts—girls in the morning, boys in the evening. Teachers are also segregated,” he said. 

“This has been happening for almost four years. At the beginning, there was hope that girls’ middle or high schools might reopen, but it hasn’t happened. Universities are already closed,” he added. 

He characterizes informal education as fragile and risky: “There were cases where women in a neighborhood gathered unofficially in one house to read or study together. But it was very informal, without structure. In some cases, these gatherings were exposed to the Taliban and people were punished. Because of that risk, it never became a widespread or encouraged practice,” he said. 

Latifi, speaking specifically about Kabul, describes a more visible reality: “Women’s universities are closed, yes. But people still go to houses to study. There are private language classes and other options for girls, and everybody knows they go. There’s no hiding it. You see women who are clearly above sixth grade holding books in the street, going somewhere. It’s very noticeable,” he said. 

“Moreover, there are women working in malls, you see them in private job positions, women working in restaurants as well. There is not a total public disappearance of women,” he added. 

Wani does not recognize this pattern from his own experience and attributes the difference to social norms: “As far as my observation goes, I haven’t seen these things. I’ve lived with Pashtun families, which is the dominant ethnic group here. I have never seen their daughters or wives going out for such activities. That’s not only policy—it’s also cultural restriction,” he said. 

Taken together, the accounts suggest a fragmented landscape: Informal education exists, but unevenly, visible in some urban spaces, clandestine or absent in others, shaped by class, geography, and risk tolerance. 

Latifi summarizes the higher education reality plainly: “Women’s universities have been shut for almost three years now, yes, but this didn’t stop women from continuing to educate themselves.”  

Wani describes the institutional impact from inside academia: “In our university, we had women teachers. They are no more. We had female students. They are no more.” 

At the same time, he outlines what he understands to be the Taliban’s internal logic: not a total rejection of women’s education, but a redesign of where women are considered necessary. 

“The message is that women are needed in medical sciences, but not in other fields. Engineering, economics, business—these are considered male professions, so not a women’s university option,” he said. 

“Women can study medicine, nutrition, and dietetics to treat other women. But the question they ask is: Why should a woman study engineering in the first place? They say it is a job of a man,” he added. 

Wani offers one of the most telling examples of how education, gender, and digital visibility intersect. He recalls that after the Taliban takeover, female students were initially allowed to return to university. 

“After August 2021, after three or four months, students were told to come back to university. We had classes for female and male students together,” he said. 

That reopening did not last. According to Wani, authorities began to interpret women’s presence through their online activity. 

“Then these girls started uploading their pictures and videos on Instagram and Snapchat. These things went directly to the Ministry of Communication and Information Technology. The perception became that they are not going to university for studying. They are going there to make reels,” he noted. 

The response, he says, was decisive: “Then suddenly the decision came: Let’s put a ban on higher education for females in this sector.” 

Whether representative or not, the account illustrates how digital visibility itself can become grounds for restriction, collapsing education, morality, and surveillance into a single logic. 

Akram describes Taliban control not only as policy but as everyday enforcement, particularly in public services. 

“In women’s health facilities, male doctors are not allowed to see female patients, even in critical conditions. There were cases where male doctors were arrested for trying to help. At hospitals, you often see Taliban standing at the entrance, watching. Because there is no formal complaint mechanism, they become the sole decision-makers, and they abuse that power,” he said. 

Wani describes control through presence and ambiguity: “At checkpoints, you see people in uniform, sometimes in civilian clothes. Many people have guns, and it’s not always clear who is Taliban, who is militia, who is guard. That confusion itself creates pressure on people.” 

Latifi, while acknowledging restrictions, emphasizes adaptation: “There are still small windows of opportunity. People adjust and find ways to continue daily life within constraints, and this is still an ongoing mechanism.” 

Latifi describes women’s presence in Kabul as constrained but real: “Women walk around alone. They take taxis. They go to restaurants. Many do not wear burqa but can opt for niqab, COVID masks to cover their faces. There are limitations, absolutely. But it’s not like the 1990s. If women do not solo travel long distances, it is from a cultural standpoint,” he said. 

Wani, who has lived in Afghanistan since 2016, offers a similar but qualified view: “Since the Taliban came to power, I have seen women shopping, even late in the evening in some areas. But yes, you must follow proper cultural norms. That is a condition, meaning that you must be accompanied by a relative,” he noted. 

He then draws a sharp geographic line: “Kabul is not Afghanistan. If you go to the countryside, you will probably not even see women in public at all,” he added. 

Akram focuses on mobility rather than visibility: “Women are not allowed to travel alone. Not to markets, not to doctors. Many women lost their jobs because they could not have a mahram with them,” he said. 

Foreign influencers from Europe, North America, and South America traveling to Afghanistan are part of a recent trend that has raised many questions. Latifi explains the dynamics.  

“People feel safer now, so they come. ‘I went to Afghanistan’ makes a great headline. Tourist visas are easy to get. There are tour companies offering packages saying, ‘We’ll make sure no one bothers you.’ It’s a real business. There are more guesthouses, more hotels,” he said. 

“When I was in Dubai, I met a group from a Scandinavian country, and they were doing their tourist visas to travel around the country. It is an expanding phenomenon,” he added. 

He rejects the idea that this automatically constitutes Taliban propaganda: “Hospitality is Afghan culture. If a family is Taliban, they are still Afghan. That doesn’t mean the minister of interior is personally guiding tours. People also make choices about who they talk to and what they show,” he noted. 

He points to solo travelers—particularly from China—who move independently: “I’ve seen Chinese women travelers come alone. They were traveling alone all the time and they experienced no issues,” he said. 

Akram, however, raises concerns about facilitated narrative management: “There are chances that Taliban might pay some of these influencers. There are meetings with small and medium-audience influencers that gather in different places of the world, like Dubai. They are approached with free accommodation, free movement, free transport to make some content,” he said. 

“But their movement is organized. Someone is always with them. Someone tells them where to go and where not to go. They are taken to markets, historical places, friendly local families—but not to places where women cannot move or where girls cannot study to see the real reality. This is a dangerous façade,” he added. 

He warns that repetition creates belief: “If you see one video, you doubt it. If you see ten videos saying the same thing on social media and your algorithm pushes you toward this, you start believing that this is the reality, and you want to travel there by trusting paid content,” he noted. 

Wani takes a cautious position: “It could be propaganda. It could be a true story. We can’t rule out either. It can be both.” 

Latifi says foreign reporting is possible with the right credentials in Afghanistan: “If you have a journalist visa, yes. But if the topic becomes too political, there is hesitation, of course,” he said. 

Wani describes sharper boundaries, particularly around women and inquiry: “You cannot publicly interview women. And if you publish something sensitive, they will ask to see it, and you get questioned,” he said. 

He recounts cases where curiosity had consequences: “Some Indian tourists came and started doing content asking many questions—about society, politics, economy. Their visas were canceled. When you ask too many questions, you are no longer seen as a tourist.” 

He adds, “Once you move from observing to questioning, things change. There is always an eye on the people.” 

Akram contextualizes this within a broader climate of deterrence: “You don’t need to arrest everyone. You just need a few examples. People learn very quickly what not to ask,” he noted. 

Latifi argues that Afghanistan is often flattened into a single narrative abroad. 

“There are millions of misconceptions about my country. People outside don’t bother to come and see. There are human rights issues, yes, but like in other countries, such as Gaza and other sides of the globe. But you shouldn’t deny Afghan people their agency or punish them because you don’t like the government,” he said. 

Wani’s perspective is shaped by long residence and comparison: “I have been here since 2016. I have seen before and after. Kabul is not the countryside. You cannot generalize here, but for sure things are restricted,” he said. 

Akram cautions against mistaking curated access for reality: “What visitors see is not everyday life. It is whitewashed as an attempt to present something far from the truth. This applies to other countries as well, such as Pakistan.” 

Whether or not a new “permanent ban” was formally declared in 2026, the reality for Afghan women and girls has already hardened into long-term exclusion. Education pathways are narrowed, public roles reshaped, and representation increasingly filtered through controlled access, social media optics, and selective visibility. 

As viral clips of travel influencers try to reshape realities on the ground, the central challenge for journalism remains unchanged: to document complexity without sanitizing it, and to ensure that Afghan women—whose lives are most directly affected—are neither erased nor reduced to symbols in someone else’s narrative. 

The Media Line attempted to interview an Afghan woman for a testimony, but wasn’t able to include statements at the time of publication.