Five years into Taliban rule, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has released a sobering assessment of how and whether Afghanistan’s de facto security apparatus polices itself.
The August 2026 report, “Security Sector Accountability in Afghanistan,” examines the Ministry of Interior, General Directorate of Intelligence, and Office of Prison Administration, and its findings expose a system long on institutions but short on transparency.
On paper, the architecture looks substantial. Since 2021, the Taliban leadership has issued decrees prohibiting torture and arbitrary detention, established bodies such as the Security and Filtration Commission, the High Directorate of Supervision and Prosecution of Decrees and Edicts, and the Ministry of Virtue and Vice’s Commission for Hearing Complaints, and folded accountability rhetoric into the 2025 National Development Strategy. Military courts, integrated into the Supreme Court since 2022, have handed down sentences ranging from lashings to at least one execution.
The UNAMA’s core finding however is that none of this translates into public accountability. No security institution has shared comprehensive data on complaints received, investigations opened, or prosecutions completed.
The High Directorate meant to oversee every de facto institution has not disclosed a single monitoring result since its 2023 creation. The Supreme Court, which announces corporal punishments for ordinary citizens with striking regularity, has never publicly confirmed that a convicted defendant was a security official, let alone one convicted of torture.
The report also documents active obstruction provincial inspectors pressured not to forward findings to Kabul, and military courts reportedly refusing to accept petitions filed against Taliban personnel, telling complainants to stop pursuing cases against “mujahideen.” If cases do proceed, defendants are frequently released after informal mediation, with no public explanation offered to victims or their families.
For women, the gap is starker still. Of roughly 200,000 Ministry of Interior personnel, fewer than one percent are women, and only a single province maintains female staff within its complaints hearing office a structural barrier that discourages women from reporting abuse in a cultural context where they cannot safely approach male officials.
This matters beyond Afghanistan’s borders. UN Security Council Resolution 2721 frames international re engagement around Afghanistan meeting its international obligations.
UNAMA’s report suggests that despite genuine institutional activity, the de facto authorities have yet to demonstrate the kind of verifiable, disaggregated reporting that would allow that claim to be tested by Afghan citizens or by the international community.
The recommendations are neither radical nor externally imposed they ask for publishing complaint statistics, allow legal representation in military courts, protect journalists who report on security forces conduct, and let independent oversight bodies actually report what they find. That such basic transparency measures remain absent nearly five years on says less about capacity than about political will.
For a region watching Afghanistan’s trajectory closely, the report is a reminder that governance claims are only as credible as the evidence behind them. Institutions that investigate themselves, in secret, offer little more than the appearance of accountability and appearances, as UNAMA notes, are increasingly what the Taliban’s own credibility now rests on.
UNAMA’s Latest Report Reveals Zero Transparency in Afghanistan’s Governance
Five years into Taliban rule, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) has released a sobering assessment of how and whether Afghanistan’s de facto security apparatus polices itself.
The August 2026 report, “Security Sector Accountability in Afghanistan,” examines the Ministry of Interior, General Directorate of Intelligence, and Office of Prison Administration, and its findings expose a system long on institutions but short on transparency.
On paper, the architecture looks substantial. Since 2021, the Taliban leadership has issued decrees prohibiting torture and arbitrary detention, established bodies such as the Security and Filtration Commission, the High Directorate of Supervision and Prosecution of Decrees and Edicts, and the Ministry of Virtue and Vice’s Commission for Hearing Complaints, and folded accountability rhetoric into the 2025 National Development Strategy. Military courts, integrated into the Supreme Court since 2022, have handed down sentences ranging from lashings to at least one execution.
The UNAMA’s core finding however is that none of this translates into public accountability. No security institution has shared comprehensive data on complaints received, investigations opened, or prosecutions completed.
The High Directorate meant to oversee every de facto institution has not disclosed a single monitoring result since its 2023 creation. The Supreme Court, which announces corporal punishments for ordinary citizens with striking regularity, has never publicly confirmed that a convicted defendant was a security official, let alone one convicted of torture.
The report also documents active obstruction provincial inspectors pressured not to forward findings to Kabul, and military courts reportedly refusing to accept petitions filed against Taliban personnel, telling complainants to stop pursuing cases against “mujahideen.” If cases do proceed, defendants are frequently released after informal mediation, with no public explanation offered to victims or their families.
For women, the gap is starker still. Of roughly 200,000 Ministry of Interior personnel, fewer than one percent are women, and only a single province maintains female staff within its complaints hearing office a structural barrier that discourages women from reporting abuse in a cultural context where they cannot safely approach male officials.
This matters beyond Afghanistan’s borders. UN Security Council Resolution 2721 frames international re engagement around Afghanistan meeting its international obligations.
UNAMA’s report suggests that despite genuine institutional activity, the de facto authorities have yet to demonstrate the kind of verifiable, disaggregated reporting that would allow that claim to be tested by Afghan citizens or by the international community.
The recommendations are neither radical nor externally imposed they ask for publishing complaint statistics, allow legal representation in military courts, protect journalists who report on security forces conduct, and let independent oversight bodies actually report what they find. That such basic transparency measures remain absent nearly five years on says less about capacity than about political will.
For a region watching Afghanistan’s trajectory closely, the report is a reminder that governance claims are only as credible as the evidence behind them. Institutions that investigate themselves, in secret, offer little more than the appearance of accountability and appearances, as UNAMA notes, are increasingly what the Taliban’s own credibility now rests on.
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