Afghan women face violence, repression as world focus shifts

 Under the Taliban’s latest rule, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people in Afghanistan are facing “grave threats” of violence and death

The Taliban reportedly captured 40 people in Mazar-e-Sharif, a medium-sized city in Afghanistan, at the end of January 2022. Taliban members then allegedly gang-raped eight of the women. The women who survived the gang rape were subsequently killed by their families. The fact that the women had been raped violated a societal honor code called Pashtunwalli, which prohibits women from engaging in sex outside of marriage.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid tweeted that some of the women they arrested “remain detained because their male relatives have not yet come to escort them.” News of the attack is circulating among various Afghan communities and some local media, according to several Afghan women’s rights activists who are part of my academic network. These colleagues cannot be named because of security concerns. Women’s rights activists marched in Kabul on Jan. 16, 2022, asking where the women of the Mazar-e-Sharif attack have gone.