A woman who claimed to have been recently released from a Taliban detention facility in the western Afghan city of Herat accused Taliban guards of carrying out sexual assaults against young female detainees, according to an audio recording that circulated widely on social media.
In the recording, the woman describes being held with several elderly female prisoners when approximately 20 young women and girls were brought into the facility. She states that, late one night, Taliban guards entered the women’s quarters, cut the electricity, and separated the younger detainees from the rest of the prisoners.
What followed, she alleges, could be heard but not seen by the audience.
The lights remained off, and the older women were left listening to what she described as screams and cries coming from the area where the younger detainees had been taken. She said that neither she nor the other prisoners were able to intervene.
The woman further claimed that Taliban personnel remained with the young women throughout the night, leaving only at dawn.
However, these allegations could not be independently verified. The Taliban have not publicly commented on the claims contained in the recording.
The account adds to a growing body of testimonies from former detainees who have accused Taliban authorities of abuse inside detention facilities since the group returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. Women released from custody have previously described being subjected to intimidation, humiliation, physical mistreatment, and sexual violence.
The Taliban have repeatedly rejected accusations of widespread abuse and maintained that they govern in accordance with Islamic principles while safeguarding women’s rights.
Human rights organizations and United Nations officials have continued to raise concerns about the treatment of women in Taliban custody. Richard Bennett, the U.N. special rapporteur on human rights in Afghanistan, has previously described conditions in women’s detention facilities as deeply troubling. In one report, he noted that survivors of sexual violence often remain silent out of fear of stigma, social exclusion, or retaliation.
As with many allegations emerging from inside Afghanistan’s largely closed detention system, independent verification remains difficult, leaving former detainees’ accounts as the few glimpses into conditions behind prison walls.
Photo credited: Internet
