Ever since the takeover of Afghanistan by the Taliban in 2021, there has been a rampant increase in human rights violations and crimes against women. After restricting women's access to nearly everything, the Taliban is now sending them to jail in the name of protecting them from gender-based violence, according to a United Nations report published on Thursday.
Before the Taliban came into power in the country, there were around 23 state-run women's protection centres in Afghanistan. These centres provided shelters to women who were victims of gender-based violence. Terming these centres a ‘Western concept’, Taliban officials are now sending such women to prison, according to the UN report.
Officials from the Taliban-led administration told the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan that there was no need for such shelters or that they were a Western concept.
If women have no male relatives to stay with or if their male relatives are considered unsafe, then these women will be sent to prison, said the UN report. Authorities have also asked male relatives for commitments or sworn statements that they will not harm a female relative, inviting local elders to witness the guarantee, it added.
Women are sent to prison for their protection “akin to how prisons have been used to accommodate drug addicts and homeless people in Kabul," the report said.
Taliban is notorious for violating human rights and gender inequality. Since the Taliban takeover, women and girls have been increasingly confined to their homes. From education to jobs, females are restricted to performing even their basic rights in the country. They are barred from education beyond sixth grade, including university, public spaces like parks, and most jobs. They must take a male chaperone with them on journeys of more than 72 km (45 miles) and follow a dress code.
In July this year, a Taliban decree announced the closure of the last place where women can go outside their home or family environment, ie parlors and beauty salons. Afghanistan has, for years, ranked among the worst places in the world to be born female.
After the Taliban took control of the nation, millions of girls were out of school, moreover, there was a rampant increase in child marriage and violence, and abuse was widespread.