Women arrested by the Taliban have said that they are being subjected to ‘brutal’ rapes and beatings in Afghan prisoners.
They said they were arrested for begging by Taliban officials enforcing draconian new anti-begging laws before being sexually abused, tortured and forced to work in prison. Children were allegedly also detained, abused and some were even beaten to death.
The women explained that they had to beg for money and food for their children as they were unable to find paid work after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 and barred women from working.
Earlier his year the Taliban passed a new law prohibiting ‘healthy people’ who have enough money for one day’s food from begging on the streets.
The Taliban said they have ’rounded up’ nearly 60,000 beggars just in Kabul.
One mother-of-three, aged 32, said she had to move to Kabul to beg for food after her husband, who was a member of the national army of Afghanistan’s former government, disappeared.
After her husband’s disappearance, she said she went to the neighbourhood councillor for help.
‘He said there was no help and told me to sit by the bakery [and] maybe someone would give me something,’ she told the Guardian.
She only learned of the Taliban’s anti-begging laws when officials stopped their car near the bakery and forced her into the vehicle after taking her son.
The woman then allegedly spent three days and nights in a Taliban prison, where she was forced to cook, clean and do laundry for the men employed there at first before officials told her that she would be fingerprinted and have her biometric details recorded.
Her resistance resulted in a brutal beating, leaving her unconscious. The 32-year-old claims that she was then raped.
The woman said she thought about suicide following her release, but worries about who would feed her children have stopped her.
Another woman arrested after begging in Kabul said she was taken to Badam Bagh prison and held there for 15 days.
The mother of a four-year-old daughter, whose husband abandoned her and her child, also said she was forced to clean and wash dishes.
She said she was beaten and raped, along with two other women, while in prison, which left her traumatised and depressed.
The woman added that even young children who polished shoes on the streets were detained.
Another former detainee told Afghan news outlet Zan Times that two children were beaten to death in front of her while she was in prison.
‘No one dared speak,’ she added. ‘If we spoke up, they’d beat us and call us shameless. Watching those children die before my eyes is something I’ll never forget.’
The Taliban even included a provision for beggars dying while in prison into their anti-begging law, which states that if a beggar dies in custody, authorities will handle the burial should the deceased not have any relatives or should their family refuse to collect the body.
Beggars are categorised as ‘professional’, ‘destitute’ or ‘organised’ by a newly-established commission, which involves taking their biometric data and fingerprints.
Those categorised as ‘destitute’ are technically entitled to financial assistance following their release from detention, but the women said they had received no help.
One said she had been too afraid to beg again and instead was forced to rely on her neighbours to help out.
‘These days, I go door to door in my neighbourhood, collecting stale, dry bread. I have no other choice,’ she told the Zan Times. ‘The Taliban are brutal and oppressive but where can I go to complain about them? We are alone.’
