A shocking revelation from the Taliban’s women’s prison.
Two former British prisoners of Pul-e-Charkhi prison in Kabul state that the Taliban imprison women not for committing crimes, but for being women, working, driving, and being present in society.
Barbie and Peter Reynolds, who were released in September 2025 after months of detention, revealed in an interview with the Daily Mail that a large portion of female prisoners were held in humiliating conditions without a clear verdict, without access to a lawyer, and without knowledge of their sentence length.
Barbie Reynolds says a 19-year-old girl was sentenced to six months in prison solely for driving her boyfriend’s car, and another woman, a mother of four, was sent to prison for five years because her husband saw her talking to a man;
While the murderer remained free. She emphasizes that about 90 percent of her cellmates had no real crime and were only punished for trying to work, provide for their families, and survive; women whom the Taliban have essentially stripped of their humanity.
These accounts also reveal the catastrophic conditions of the women’s ward in Pul-e-Charkhi prison;
Where 15 women and two children live in one cell, with severe food shortages, a lack of health services, and inhumane bathrooms and toilets. Observers say what is happening in Pul-e-Charkhi prison is part of the Taliban’s broader policy for the complete destruction of women’s rights;
A policy that has deprived half of society’s body from education, work, and even the right to breathe, and has turned Afghanistan into a large prison for women.
