The U.S. State Department has accused the Taliban of continuing to recruit children as soldiers and forcing boys into sexual slavery, despite official bans, in its 2025 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. According to the report, children as young as 12 were enlisted into support roles through falsified age documents and trained in military and religious schools. The State Department noted that the Taliban failed to enforce its own prohibitions on underage recruitment, with no cases of child soldiers being identified, released, or investigated in 2024.
The report further highlighted that no investigations or prosecutions were conducted regarding bacha bazi (Sexual Abuse), a form of sexual exploitation involving boys, despite its continued prevalence under Taliban rule. Instead, trafficking victims—including children forced into sexual abuse, labor, or street begging were frequently detained by authorities without proper screening or referral to care. Many of these victims, it said, were held in adult prisons where they were subjected to abuse, torture, and forced labor.
Civil society organizations in Kabul operate limited shelters for women and children, but the report said these facilities face heavy restrictions. Taliban policies barring most Afghan women from working with aid groups have severely undermined protection services, with some female staff reportedly detained for lacking a male guardian.
Afghanistan remains placed in Tier 3, the lowest category in the State Department’s global trafficking ranking, signifying failure to meet minimum international standards and lack of significant efforts to combat human trafficking.
While the Taliban issued a decree last year declaring human trafficking illegal under Sharia law, the State Department found no evidence of implementation. “For the third consecutive year, the Taliban did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions, nor did they identify or protect any trafficking victims,” the report stated.
The TIP Report also warned that ethnic and religious minorities including Hazara Shia, Ahmadi Muslims, Sikhs, Hindus, Bahais, and Christians remain at heightened risk of exploitation due to threats from the Taliban and Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). Former Afghan security personnel who fled abroad were also flagged as vulnerable to trafficking, including possible recruitment into Russia’s war in Ukraine.
The U.S. State Department urged the Taliban to end child recruitment and sexual slavery, identify and protect trafficking victims, implement its anti-trafficking decree, and strengthen cooperation with civil society organizations working with vulnerable populations.
