Women arrested by the Taliban have said they are being subjected to “brutal” rapes and beatings by Afghan prisoners.
They said they were arrested for begging by Taliban officials who enforced draconian new anti-begging laws before being sexually abused, tortured and forced to work in prison. Children are also said to have been arrested, abused and some even beaten to death.
The women explained that they had to beg for money and food for their children because they could not find paid work after the Taliban took power in Afghanistan in 2021 and banned women from working.
Earlier this year, the Taliban passed a new law banning “healthy people” who have enough money for one day’s food from begging on the streets.
The Taliban say they have rounded up nearly 60,000 beggars in Kabul alone.
A mother of three, 32, said she had to move to Kabul to beg for food after her husband, who was a member of the former Afghan government’s national army, disappeared.
After her husband’s disappearance, she said she went to the district councilor for help.
“He said there was no help and told me to sit at the bakery (and) maybe someone would give me something,” she told the Guardian.
Begging women reportedly targeted under new law in Kabul, where Taliban claim to have detained nearly 60,000 people
File photo of women and children begging for bread outside a bakery in central Kabul, Afghanistan, January 14, 2022
She only learned of the Taliban’s anti-begging laws when officials stopped their car at the bakery and forced her into the vehicle after taking her son.
The woman would then spent three days and nights in a Taliban prison, where she first had to cook, clean and do laundry for the men who worked there, before officials told her she would be fingerprinted and her biometric data recorded.
Her resistance resulted in a brutal beating, which left her unconscious. The 32-year-old claims she was then raped.
The woman said she thought about suicide after her release, but worries about who would feed her children stopped her.
Another woman arrested in Kabul after begging said she was taken to Badam Bagh prison and held there for 15 days.
The mother of a four-year-old daughter, whose husband abandoned her and her child, also said she was forced to clean and do the dishes.
She said she was beaten and raped in prison along with two other women, leaving her traumatized and depressed.
The woman added that even young children those shining shoes on the street were arrested.
An Afghan woman begs for money as she passes cars in the snow, with a child huddled next to her, on the Kabul road south to Pul-e Alam, Afghanistan, on January 17, 2022
Another former detainee told Afghan news channel Zan Times that two children were beaten to death in front of her while she was in prison.
“No one dared to speak,” she added. “If we said anything, they would beat us and call us shameless. Seeing those children die in front of my eyes is something I will never forget.”
The Taliban have even included a provision for beggars who die while in prison in their anti-beggery law, which states that if a beggar dies in custody, authorities will arrange the funeral if the deceased has no relatives or if his family refuses to pick up the body. .
Beggars will be categorized as ‘professional’, ‘destitute’ or ‘organised’ by a newly formed committee, with their biometric data and fingerprints taken.
Those classified as “destitute” are technically entitled to financial assistance after their release from detention, but the women said they had received no assistance.
One of them said she had been too scared to beg again and had to rely on her neighbors’ help instead.
‘These days I go door to door in my neighborhood to collect old, dry bread. I have no other choice,” she told Zan Times. ‘The Taliban are cruel and oppressive, but where can I complain about them? We are alone.’