‘Whipped in front of everyone’: three women on being flogged by the Taliban
Since the Taliban’s return to power in 2021, public floggings, executions, imprisonment without trial, and state-sanctioned humiliation have become a commonplace in Afghanistan.
More than 1,050 people have been flogged in public, including at least 200 women, according to court records and media reports. The true numbers are likely much higher.
Among those punished are women accused of so-called ‘moral crimes’ which includes leaving home without a male guardian or mahram, being seen alone in public or speaking to unrelated men.
Zan Times spoke to three women who said they had been flogged by Taliban over the past two years for alleged moral crimes, which they had been forced to confess.
Deeba: ‘They whipped me in front of everyone’
In the absence of her husband who went to work in Iran, 38-year-old Deeba, says she is the sole provider for her seven children. She is a tailor and sews men’s clothes in her home and goes out alone to deliver them.
In the past two years, she has been arrested twice by the Taliban’s Vice and Virtue enforcers. The first arrest happened when she was renting a sewing machine from an unrelated man. She says she was beaten, called “prostitute” and forced to spend four nights in jail.
The second time came about three months later when she was sitting in a sandwich shop charging her phone. She was wearing a long coat and a large shawl, but the Taliban Vice and Virtue enforcers still stopped her.
“They said, ‘Why are you unveiled? Why are you alone without a mahram?’ I told them, ‘The earthquake has made it hard to go home. There’s no electricity. That’s why I came here to charge my phone and grab a sandwich.’”
Her answer provoked the Taliban even further. “They kicked the sandwich shop owner out of his own place and slapped him, shouting, ‘Why did you let this woman into your store? What relationship do you have with her?’ When I saw them treating him like that, I argued with them.”
Two days later, she was arrested and taken to the Taliban custody and accused of insulting Taliban’s religious scholars [vice and virtue enforcers], plus being a woman without a mahram spotted outside her home. She was thrown into prison and held for 20 days.
“There were 15 of us in one cell. Four beds. The rest slept on the floor. They weren’t giving us food. The blankets were filthy. I asked for my phone to call home because my daughter was sick and they didn’t know I was arrested, but the Taliban refused. I screamed, begged. But instead they threw me into a solitary cell.”
Eventually, Deeba was brought to a Taliban court. No lawyer was representing her. The judge convicted her of appearing without a male guardian and insulting religious scholars. She was sentenced to 25 lashes.
“They took me to a public place, covered my head, and whipped me in front of everyone,” she says. Deeba says she was then detained for another two days to ensure some of the wound recovers.
Since returning home, Deeba says she has struggled with the humiliation of the public flogging and is on medication to cope with her trauma.
“When I was released, even my closest friends started treating me differently. They called me names and spoke about me with such disgust because they’d been told lies about what happened.
“I have nothing more to say, it was just so hard. Unbearably hard. Can anyone understand what it’s like to be slapped in front of a crowd, punched in front of people, covered up and flogged in public?”
Sahar: ‘They made me confess that I had done something wrong’
Sahar*, 22, was very sick last year. Her father worked in Iran and her mother ran a carpet-weaving workshop in a village in western Afghanistan. There was no one to take her to the clinic, where two of her uncles were working. Her mother called her male cousin to drive her.
The Taliban stopped their vehicle just before reaching the clinic and asked about their relationship.
“When we said we are cousins, but we weren’t married, they became aggressive. They beat my cousin, smashed our phones, and forced me to hide on the floor of the Taliban truck as they drove me to their station,” says Sahar.
She says she was then taken to a detention center. “I was terrified, crying, and I couldn’t breathe. I told them I was sick and asked for some medicine. That’s when they slapped me and kicked me several times. One of them said, ‘If you raise your voice again, we’ll kill both you and your cousin.’”
Sahar says she was interrogated by a veiled woman. “She asked who my cousin was, whether I was a virgin, whether we had a relationship. I said no. She warned me that I have to confess and if I didn’t obey, I’d be tortured.”
The next day, Sahar and her cousin were brought before a Taliban court, where she says she was forced to falsely claim she had a relationship with her cousin. She had no lawyer. Despite the presence of relatives who testified that they were family, the Taliban refused to recognise their relationship as “mahram” and permissible.
“They made me confess, in front of my mother, my uncles, that I had done something wrong. I didn’t want to say it. But they hit me, threatened my cousin. I was terrified,” she says.
Sahar says she was sentenced to 30 lashes and her cousin to 70. “They used loudspeakers to announce our punishment. My little sister was there. She used to say I was her role model. I saw her crying in the crowd. That broke me.”
After returning home, Sahar says she was eventually forced to leave her village. “After this happened, people’s view of us changed completely. Even if 50 people didn’t believe the accusation, 100 others did. That forced us to leave our home and move to the city.”
Karima: ‘We couldn’t leave until the wounds healed’
A similar story happened to 18-year-old Karima* in another western province. In 2023, while 16, she says she was traveling with her male cousin to buy sewing supplies for her mother when the Talian stopped them.
“We were stopped on the road. The Taliban asked for our IDs. I told them he was my cousin, but they said, ‘That’s not a valid mahram. You don’t have the right to be with him.’ They arrested us on the spot”.
Karima says she spent two months in prison and suffered panic attacks and hallucinations. “I blacked out. When I woke up, my wrists were handcuffed and bleeding, and a prisoner told me they had tied me down and stepped on me”. “Sick prisoners weren’t allowed to see doctors. Some died in that place. If someone spoke back, they’d be chained and made to lie down while others were ordered to walk over them.
Karima says both she and her cousin were flogged in the town square of the city where they lived. She was whipped 39 times and her cousin received 50. They were then taken back to prison. “They kept us for another week. They said we couldn’t leave until the wounds healed. They didn’t want anyone to see what they had done.”
When she was finally released, she says Taliban officials told her she was banned from leaving the country. “‘You’re being watched,’ they told me, ‘You’re not allowed to go abroad.’”
However, like Sahar and Deeba she suffered the humiliation of people staring at her and whispering upon returning to her home village was forced to relocate to a different city in Afghanistan.
The names in this article have been changed to protect their security. Rad Radan is pen name of a freelance journalist. This report has been published in partnership with the Guardian.
