PRESS RELEASE
The women of Afghanistan have been awarded the 2026 Chatham House Prize, “in recognition of their courage and resilience in the face of systematic gender persecution, and for embodying the determination of a broader movement for women’s rights”, the London-based leading research and policy think-tank has announced.
The prize is presented to “the person, persons, or organization deemed to have made the most significant contribution to the improvement of international relations.”
”Five years since the Taliban returned to power, women and girls in Afghanistan have faced an expanding range of restrictions on their participation in public life,” Chatham House said in a Press statement. “They have been excluded from secondary and higher education, restricted from many forms of employment and faced increasing limits on their freedom of movement.”
Against this backdrop, the statement noted that “women across Afghanistan have continued to resist restrictions on their rights and freedoms, including through protests, advocacy and efforts to maintain access to education. Their resistance has drawn international attention to the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan and the consequences of their exclusion from public life.”
Bronwen Maddox, Director and Chief Executive of Chatham House, said: “The women of Afghanistan have shown extraordinary courage and resilience in the face of systematic efforts to exclude them from education, work and public life.”
Continuing, the statement said that “Five years after the Taliban returned to power, women across the country continue to resist their erasure, defend their rights and those of future generations, and keep alive hope and opportunity for women and girls.
”Their courage embodies the determination of a much broader movement for women’s rights and challenges the rest of the world not to look away,” it added. “This award recognises those efforts and the example they set in the face of extraordinary restrictions.”
Dr Farzana Shaikh, Associate Fellow in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, said: “The 2026 Chatham House Prize awarded to the women of Afghanistan is richly deserved and stands as testimony to their resistance and determination never to be erased from public memory. Their fortitude in the face of draconian and discriminatory laws imposed by Taliban rule sets a matchless example for all those dedicated to equal rights for women and to the ideal of a fairer world.”
The statement also quoted Dr Chietigj Bajpaee, Senior Research Fellow for South Asia in the Asia-Pacific Programme at Chatham House, as saying: “No community has suffered more under renewed Taliban rule than the country’s women and girls, as they have lost access to various aspects of public life, from education and employment to the right to move freely throughout the country. Reports of girls attending secret schools and women leading demonstrations against the regime illustrate their courage and fortitude in the face of unjustified adversity.”
Through awarding the Chatham House Prize to the women of Afghanistan, “we aim to do our part in raising awareness of an issue that has tragically fallen off the radar of the international community,” the statement affirmed.
The Prize will be presented during a special event at Chatham House later this year, together with a scroll signed by His Majesty, the King of England, Patron of The Royal Institute of International Affairs.
Launched in 2005, the Chatham House Prize is voted for by Chatham House members, following nominations from the institute’s staff.
Previous recipients include President Volodymyr Zelenskyy of Ukraine, Médecins Sans Frontières and the Committee to Protect Journalists.
In 2025, the Prize was awarded to Sudan’s grassroots mutual aid groups, the Emergency Response Rooms (ERRs), for their humanitarian response to the war in Sudan.
