BAHARIN LEHIB

Afghanistan- The Taliban have carried out a wave of arrests against women in western Kabul, for allegedly violating Taliban dress codes since the Taliban’s enforcement of August 2024 “vice and virtue” decree requiring women to completely cover their bodies, including their faces, in public at all times.

According to local sources, approximately 100 women have been arrested in western Kabul for three days. Although some women were released on bail, the whereabouts of many are still unknown.

Rights violations against women in prison

According to women, who were arrested and then released from the Taliban’s prisons, women are subjected to human rights violations in prisons such as physical violence, sexual assaults and strip search.

‘The aim is to intimidate women’

Since the Taliban’s takeover of Afghanistan on August 15, 2021,  girls and women have been banned from attending secondary schools and universities and from working for local and international NGOs. “When the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, they first targeted women and girls to intimidate women,” Yalda Ahmed, a women's rights activist and psychologist in Afghanistan, told NuJINHA.

‘The Taliban is afraid of women’s resistance’

Yalda Ahmed thinks that the aim of the Taliban’s recent wave of arrests against women is to erase women from public spaces. “Many women have been arrested in western Kabul for allegedly violating ‘dress codes’. The Taliban are afraid of women’s resistance and try to intimidate women by arresting them.”

‘Resistance is the road to freedom’

Yalda Ahmed concluded her speech by pointing to the determination of Afghan women. “As an Afghan woman, I believe in the resistance of the brave women of this country. For four years, they have struggled although they have been arrested, tortured and killed. Afghan women know very well that resistance is the road to freedom and they will resist.”