Amnesty denounces the "stifling repression" imposed by the Taliban on women and girls in Afghanistan

The NGO regrets that the Taliban "are devastating the lives of women and girls with the repression of their Human Rights"

MADRID, 27 Jul. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The non-governmental organization Amnesty International has denounced this Wednesday the "stifling repression" imposed by the Taliban on women and girls since they took power in Afghanistan in August 2021 after the then-president, Ashraf Ghani, fled the country, and in the last phases of the withdrawal of international troops.

In its report 'Death in Slow Motion: Women and Girls Under Taliban Rule', the NGO has stated that "the Taliban are devastating the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan with the repression of their Human Rights", including restrictions on their right to education, work and free movement.

"Less than a year after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan, their draconian policies have deprived millions of women and girls of their right to a safe, free and fulfilling life," said Amnesty International Secretary General Agnes Callamard. "Taken together, these policies form a system of repression that discriminates against women and girls in almost every aspect of their lives. Every day detail, whether they go to school, whether they work and how they work, whether they leave the home and how they go out, is controlled and subject to great restrictions," he criticized.

Thus, he lamented that "this suffocating repression against the female population of Afghanistan increases every day" and added that "the international community must urgently demand that the Taliban respect and protect the rights of women and girls".

For this reason, Amnesty International has called on the group to initiate political changes and measures to uphold the rights of women and girls and has called on the international community to develop and implement a strong and coordinated strategy to pressure the Taliban to this end. .

The report includes an investigation carried out between September 2021 and June 2022, which includes interviews with 90 Afghan women and eleven girls in 20 of the 34 provinces of the country and which reflects the application of policies of systematic discrimination against their rights despite their repeated public commitments after seizing power.

Amnesty has accused the Taliban of suppressing demonstrations in which women demanded their rights, including abuse, arrests, arbitrary imprisonment, enforced disappearances and physical and psychological torture. A woman who was detained for several days in 2022 has recounted that the guards went to her room to "show her photos of her family".

"They repeated over and over (...) 'We can kill them, all of them, and you won't be able to do anything (...) Don't cry, don't make a scene. After protesting, you should have foreseen days like this,'" has noted, before adding that she was assaulted in custody. "They closed the door. They started yelling at me. (A Taliban) said: 'You're disgusting (...) America doesn't give us money because of you bitches' (...) Then he kicked me. It was so hard that He hurt my back, and he also kicked my chin (...) I still feel the pain in my mouth. It hurts every time I want to speak," he said.

Two other women have detailed that, after photos of the injuries suffered by a protester at the hands of the security forces were published on social networks, the Taliban devised a strategy to prevent these cases from coming to light.

"They hit us on the chest and between the legs. They did it so we couldn't show it to the world. A soldier walking near me hit me on the chest and said, 'I can kill you right now and no one will say anything.' This happened every time we went out: they insulted us physically, verbally and emotionally", one of them pointed out.

In addition, they have denounced that during their detention they did not have access to adequate food, water, ventilation, hygiene products and medical care. To obtain their freedom, they forced the women to sign an agreement in which they promised not to protest again and not to speak in public about their experiences in detention, neither themselves nor their relatives.

Separately, four women have reported that the Taliban are increasingly arresting women and girls for minor infractions of its discriminatory policies, including a ban on going in public without a 'guardian'. In these cases, the detainees are usually accused of "moral corruption".

"Sometimes they bring the boys and girls from the cafe (...) or if they see a woman who is not with a 'mahram', they can arrest her. Before these types of cases were not in jail (...) The This number increases every month", pointed out a prison worker.

In this sense, a university student arrested this year has said that she received threats and attacks after being arrested for charges related to this matter, including "electric shocks to the shoulder, face, neck, in all the places they could". "They called me a prostitute and a bitch. The one with the gun said: 'I'm going to kill you and no one will be able to find your body,'" she added.

Likewise, survivors of cases of gender violence who previously resided in residences have been transferred to detention centers. "Some came after asking the Taliban themselves where their refuge was. (The Taliban) had nowhere, so they ended up in jail," she recounted. These women and girls have also been subjected to solitary confinement, beatings and other forms of torture.

Amnesty's research also notes an increase in child marriages since the Taliban came to power, with factors ranging from the humanitarian economic crisis to the lack of educational and professional prospects for women and girls, including forced marriages by part of members of the fundamentalist group.

"In Afghanistan we have a perfect storm for child marriage: a patriarchal government, war, poverty, drought, girls out of school. With the sum of all these factors (...) we knew that early marriage was going to skyrocket," he explained. Stephanie Sinclair, director of Too Young to Wed, an organization that works on early and forced marriage.

Jorshid, 35, has stated that the economic crisis forced her to marry her thirteen-year-old daughter to a 30-year-old neighbor in September 2021 in exchange for 60,000 Afghanis (about 660 euros). Thus, she has reported that, after that, she felt relieved and thought that her daughter "will never go hungry", before adding that she was thinking of marrying her ten-year-old daughter.

However, she has pointed out that until now she has been reluctant to this option due to the possibility that it could help support the family in the future. "I wanted her to study more. She would know how to read and write, and speak English, and she could win (...) I hope that this daughter will become something and that she will support the family. Of course, if they do not open the school I will have to marry her off," said Jorshid.

The Taliban have maintained the closure of classrooms for a large part of the students despite the commitment to return to classes in March 2023. "These young women simply wanted to have a future, and now they do not see any," said Fatima, a teacher in Nangarhar province (east).

"The Taliban deliberately deprive millions of women and girls of their human rights, subjecting them to systematic discrimination," Callamard said. "If the international community does not act, it will be abandoning the women and girls of Afghanistan and harming Human Rights throughout the world," he concluded.