Eight years ago, Rahima eloped with her boyfriend, of whom her family disapproved. Soon, Rahima’s husband was abusing her. After enduring months of escalating physical abuse, she went to the police headquarters in Mazar-e-Sharif, which transferred her to the safety of a women’s shelter.
It was part of a countrywide system of shelters created with aid money that provided survivors of gender-based violence with somewhere to stay after they fled their abusers. Eventually, the shelter’s authorities transferred her to Kabul, where she has lived in a shelter for the past seven years.
Everything changed after the Taliban returned to power. They closed women’s shelters and dismantled almost the entire support system for victims of gender-based violence, according to an Amnesty International report released in December 2021.
Eight women used to live in Rahima’s shelter. However, faced with pressure from staff who wanted to close the facility due to fear of Taliban rule and the drying up of resources, most of the women subsequently left the Kabul facility, either returning to their abusive family members or fleeing the country. There are also reports that the Taliban has transferred women living in shelters to prisons.
Rahima resisted, saying that she had no place to go to. Last month, the staff of the shelter gave Rahima a two-month notice to leave the shelter. “How can I live alone under the Taliban regime? They tell me that I should either find a house for myself or go to my father’s house,” 29-year-old Rahima told Zan Times in a telephone interview.
Rahima explains that if she could have lived safely in her father’s house, she would not have lived for seven years in a shelter. “I can’t go back to my father’s house; my brother and my ex-husband won’t let me live.” She is still in contact with her mother who told her that her husband is looking for her.
As well, she explains that it is impossible to live alone because of Taliban decrees such as the one that states a solo woman cannot walk down the street without a male chaperone. The stress of her predicament means that Rahima now has mental health issues and takes sedatives.
With the closure of so many shelters, women like Rahima have nowhere to go. “Many survivors – as well as shelter staff, lawyers, judges, government officials, and others involved in protective services – are now at risk of violence and death,” explained Amnesty International.
Khatira is also trying to survive. She escaped a forced marriage nine years ago for the safety of a women’s shelter in Kabul. Then, one month after the Taliban took over, a military base was set up near the shelter, she recounts. One evening, five Taliban gunmen had visited their shelter, asking for women’s names and telephone numbers. Khatira, 28, says this incident scared her so much that she fled by herself to Pakistan.
Khatira has spent the last 10 months in Islamabad and has had to change her place of residence six times. “It is difficult to find a place as a young solo woman,” she said in a phone interview. “No one trusts me and no one gives a place, especially with the little money I have.” She has even been forced to sleep on the streets for several nights.
Both women fear for the future. Rahima had been studying for her high school diploma and hoped to get into university. Now, she says she has lost her hope. “I can no longer bear this life, sometimes I think of death.”
Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees.
