From Forced Displacement to Violation of Honor; Taliban Continues to Suppress Women in Ghor with Arrest of Two Young Girls.
A few days after the forced displacement of hundreds of families from residential areas in Ghor province – which reportedly included more than 600 houses – the Taliban have once again launched a new wave of repression and violence against civilians, especially women.
Local sources have confirmed that Taliban forces have arrested two young girls from the Lal Wasar Jangal district of the province without a legal warrant and on the false charge of “illicit relationship” and transferred them to an unknown location.
The incident occurred on Monday, July 21. According to sources, one of the girls fainted due to shock and fear during the arrest, and there is no information about their health status or whereabouts. As usual, the Taliban have remained silent in the face of this blatant violation of citizens’ rights.
The recent action in Ghor is a continuation of a trend that has been widely followed by the Taliban over the past three years: arbitrary arrests, invasions of privacy, severe restrictions on women’s freedoms, and the instrumental use of so-called Islamic institutions to exercise violence and social control. In recent days, dozens of girls and young women have also been arrested in Kabul by the Taliban’s Amr-e-Maruf forces.
Human rights analysts see such actions as part of the Taliban’s systematic project to socially exclude women and consolidate rule based on repression and intimidation; a policy that has begun with the forced displacement of families and continued with attacks on the dignity and honor of citizens.
With the continuation of this repressive approach, and in the absence of effective pressure from the international community, Afghan women are facing one of the darkest periods in their modern history; a period in which they have been denied not only the right to education and work, but even the right to live in safety and freedom. The arrest of these two young girls is just one of the hundreds of faces of structural violence that has cast a shadow over the fabric of Afghan society today.
