According to a UN report released this week, Taliban leaders in Afghanistan institutionalize widespread and systematic gender-based discrimination and violence against women and girls.

The UN system's largest body of human rights experts, the Special Procedures group, released the report on Monday.

The experts claimed in a tweet published on the group's official website that Taliban leaders were "attempting to eradicate women and girls from public life through systematic gender-based discrimination and violence."

They added that the international community "must increase humanitarian assistance responsive to women's needs."

The experts re-issued the alarm, which sounded several times since the Taliban took over Afghanistan, warning that the situation required immediate attention.

"When taken together, these policies amount to a collective punishment of women and girls, based on gender bias and harmful practices," the experts wrote.

"We are concerned about the country's ongoing and systematic efforts to marginalize women in social, economic, and political spheres."

The experts cautioned that these issues were "exacerbated in the cases of women from ethnic, religious, or linguistic minorities such as the Hazara, Tajik, Hindu, and other communities whose differences or visibility place them at an even greater risk in Afghanistan."

Additionally, they found an increased danger of women and girls being exploited, including trafficking for child and forced marriage, sexual exploitation, and forced labor.

According to the report, these exclusionary and discriminatory policies were implemented through a wave of measures that included prohibiting women from returning to work, requiring them to be accompanied in public spaces by a male relative, banning women from using public transportation alone, and imposing a strict dress code on women and girls.

"In addition to severely restricting women's freedom of movement, expression, and association, as well as their participation in public and political life, these policies have harmed women's ability to work and earn a living, further pushing them into poverty," the experts stated.

"Women heads of households are particularly hard hit, their suffering compounded by the country's humanitarian crisis."

The experts expressed grave concern about the continued denial of women and girls' fundamental right to secondary and tertiary education.

According to the report, such restrictions stigmatize women and force most girls — who should be in grades 7-12 — to stay home due to their gender.

"Today, we are witnessing a concerted effort to marginalize women and girls in public life in Afghanistan, including in institutions and mechanisms established to assist and protect them," the experts wrote.

Concerning the decision to close the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the physical occupancy of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission's buildings, the experts warned that such policies disproportionately affect "vulnerable women and girls."

"A number of critical, and in some cases life-saving, service providers that assist survivors of gender-based violence have closed their doors out of fear of retaliation," the experts added.