As I enter her house, Sima* hastily opens the window, explaining, “the house smells of drugs.” She is a woman of medium height with almond-shaped eyes and a face full of wrinkles. She is 46 years old and the mother of seven children.
As she gazes into the distance, she adds, “I have lived with this man for 27 years and never had a happy day.” I know nothing about his days and nights but when he comes home, his body reeks of decay. If I insist that he come home, he will consume his drug inside the room.”
Sima doesn’t know when her husband became addicted to drugs, but eight years ago she discovered that he was using methamphetamine. She says that her husband’s drug use has damaged his nerves and psyche. Whenever he experiences withdrawal symptoms, he abuses her and their children: “He always beats my children. My daughters are so afraid of their father that they have become depressed. He continues to beat me to the point that I can’t sleep for several nights due to pain.”
Things deteriorated after the Taliban regained power. Sima’s income dropped and with little money left to buy drugs, her husband’s abuse and violence increased. In April 2022, she decided to go to a Taliban police department in Herat city to file a complaint against her husband, both orally, and then in writing. The Taliban paid no attention to her complaint because she was a woman. “A middle-aged man with a long beard and a black turban was sitting behind the desk,” she recounts. “When I said, ‘My husband beats me and my children, please address my complaint,’ and that he needs to reform or I want a divorce, the man behind the desk angrily responded, ‘He’s not a murderer; he has a substance use disorder, he will quit. You women complain too much.’”
With no hope of justice under the Taliban, Sima is forced to continue enduring her husband’s torture. She is one of many women who find it impossible to get justice from the Taliban’s legal system.
Marzia*, a 25-year-old woman, is another woman denied legal help by the Taliban. She grew up with her maternal uncles after her parents were killed in a traffic accident when she was a child. When she turned 20, she asked her uncles to hand over her inheritance from her father – three plots of land – as she wanted to have her own independent life. They refused.
After being mistreated for three years, Marzia filed a formal complaint in writing in June 2021. Then, while her dispute was under review, the Taliban returned to power. After seeing no progress in her complaint, she went to the Taliban courts in early 2022 but was stopped from even entering the building.
In April 2023, she again went to the Taliban judicial office, where she received even worse treatment than before. This time, the Taliban official responsible for handling such complaints destroyed her file, she recounts: “One of the officials in that office, without looking at me, glanced at the file and tore it apart, then angrily told me to leave the office.”
Though Marzia has tried to find a female defence lawyer who will help her, she’s found it impossible to hire a female legal professional to work or advocate for any women’s legal cases. She’s been left both disillusioned and helpless.
Marzia’s difficulty finding legal representation isn’t a new problem. Most women who used to work in the judicial and legal sector are confined to their homes, including Simin*, one of the few female defence lawyers still in Afghanistan. Simin, who presented women’s legal cases in courts for five years before the Taliban regained power, says that the absence of a law recognizing women’s rights and the lack of a supportive and defending government have effectively reduced women’s access to justice to zero. “When women go to the Taliban’s courts and judicial offices to pursue their cases, their cases are not considered, and this slow and indifferent process has led to the frustration and humiliation of women,” she explains.
She adds that she has witnessed many instances where women are not even allowed to enter the Taliban’s judicial and legal offices. As a result, women continue to endure domestic violence. Such was the case of Farzana*, a 16-year-old girl whose father forced her into engagement with a man she despises. She has no way to annul this engagement.
Farzana says that there is no justice for women, and the voices of women are never heard. And because of this, their legal disputes were never resolved. “When I see that I have no support to address my complaint, I give up,” she says.
She recounts a bitter experience of her close friend who complained to the Taliban about her abusive husband. Instead of getting help, she was ordered not to complain about her husband again or she would be punished. “She was told, ‘You are the one at fault, get used to your life and home.’ While that girl was under her husband’s torture every day,” explains Farzana, who sees only darkness ahead for her own future.
Women under the Taliban’s rule have faced numerous challenges and obstacles in accessing justice, the Rawadari human rights organization stated in a report published in mid-2023. “Fair trial standards” were widely violated in Taliban courts, the report determined after interviewing defence lawyers, human rights defenders, former employees of judicial institutions, victims of violence, and local journalists in 26 provinces of the country, between August 2021 to June 2023. Rawadari’s conclusion was clear: Women face severe challenges in their ability to access justice.
*Names have been changed to protect the identity of the interviewees and writer. Samira Mohammadi is the pseudonym of a journalist in Afghanistan.
