Arrested for ‘bad hijab’: Afghan women claim to have been sexually abused in custody

Teenagers and women arrested by the Taliban for wearing “bad hijab” were subjected to sexual violence and abuse while in custody. This resulted in more than one woman in custody who was subjected to sexual assault dying by suicide or attempting suicide. Some women’s bodies were even found in canals or sacks. The UN said that the Taliban arrested women for wearing “bad hijab” in December 2023 and January 2024. This referred to their decree requiring every woman to cover herself from head to toe, with only the eyes visible. However, the Taliban spokesman and the ministry have denied the allegations of sexual assault and the arrests due to wearing “bad hijab.”

According to a report by the Guardian, many detained women spoke of being beaten and intimidated. More and more girls are coming forward to say that they too have been subjected to sexual assault. The body of one woman was found in a canal a few days after her arrest. Her family members said that she had been sexually abused before her death.

The plight of a teenager

A 16-year-old girl was arrested in a shop in western Kabul and held in detention for two weeks. When she returned, she was no longer the same girl as before the arrest. When her mother hugged her, the girl cried and said, “I am dishonored.” Since that day, the young girl did not eat or speak. She stayed in her room crying all day. The girl’s family said that everything she experienced in detention was too much for her. As a result, she met a tragic end.

“I woke up in the middle of the night and noticed that Zahra was not there. I woke my husband and we started searching for her in all the rooms. My husband found her body. She had hanged herself,” the girl’s mother told The Guardian.

This was not the only case in which women and girls suffered trauma as a result of the sexual violence they were subjected to while in detention.

A medical student talks about her terrible experience of sexual assault in prison

Another woman, a 22-year-old medical student, spent three nights in Taliban prison. She was arrested in January 2024. While in custody, she was taken to the interrogation room and left alone with an older man. The man interrogated her, asking about her menstruation and marital status.

The woman said: “I fell at his feet and begged him, “Please kill me, but don’t bother me.” But he said, “Since you are so determined to die, I will kill you, but first let us have some fun with you.”

The man began to touch her genitals. During the interrogation, the woman reportedly fainted twice. But the man poured cold water on her head. He repeated this with each detained woman who was brought into the interrogation room.

After her release, the medical student could not free herself from the trauma she had experienced. The woman said: “(Now) I can’t sleep at night, I’m so scared, and every time I see the Taliban soldiers I faint.” She has tried to kill herself twice. “Once I took all my mother’s medicine, but my family took me to the hospital. Every time I think about them touching me, I can’t bear life,” she lamented.

A student was arrested and then her battered body came home

Then, in December 2023, 23-year-old university student Marina Sadat was arrested as she was on her way to the Farabi Institute of Health Sciences, where she was training to be a midwife, the only course offered to women.

Twenty-two days after her arrest, her battered body was found in a sack in a canal in Kabul’s Paghman district. Other reports suggest that she was sexually abused. One of the interviewees lamented the situation of Marina and other women, saying: “It is just brutal that a young girl goes to university and her body comes home.”

The contradictory statement of the Taliban Ministry

However, on January 4, a spokesman for the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue said the women were arrested for violating Islamic code. He said women “violate Islamic values ​​and rituals and encourage society and other respected sisters to wear bad hijab… In every province, those who do not wear hijab are arrested.”

Following condemnation of the detention of women in Afghanistan and other countries around the world, the Taliban ministry’s stance changed. Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban spokesman, denied the fact that women were arrested for “bad hijabs.” On the allegations of sexual assault, a spokesman said: “The issue of rape is not possible at all because there are not just one or two people (with a prisoner in the room) and if there are three people present, such a crime would not happen… (This is) a very sensitive issue for the Taliban. I am sure that nothing like this has happened.”

The UN has called a conference for June 30, Afghanistan in Doha, which the Taliban will also attend. The UN has stated that not a single Taliban woman will attend the conference and there will be no discussion of women’s rights.