The Taliban police in Herat said on Monday that a woman injured her husband with a knife and that the man is in a coma.
“A 25-to-30-year-old man with a slit throat was brought to the emergency department of the hospital,” a source at the Herat provincial hospital told Zan Times on the condition of anonymity.
This source adds that the man is still in a coma because of heavy bleeding, which required 12 stitches in his neck.
The couple had a history of arguing and the woman had left him for the shelter in her parent’s home, according to a police source who does not want to be named. In a statement, the Taliban police said that the man was attacked after he delivered a court summons to his in-laws’ home.
After regaining power, the Taliban have dismantled virtually all systems of support for victims and survivors of domestic violence. “Afghanistan has one of the highest rates of violence against women globally, with nine out of 10 women experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime,” according to UN. In November 2019, the Independent Human Rights Commission of Afghanistan said in a report that 97 percent of violence against women is committed at home, where most women are confined since the Taliban took over.
Those Taliban restrictions have exacerbated the situation. “Violence against women and girls in Afghanistan has further increased due to restrictions in women and girls’ enjoyment of their rights and freedoms, particularly women’s right to work and their freedom of movement,” stated the UN on the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women in November 2021.
