Human Rights Organisations Investigate Taliban's Arrest of Women and Girls

Information obtained by Afghanistan International indicates that several human rights organisations are conducting investigations into the Taliban's extensive detention of girls for breaching the group's dress code.

Notable international bodies, such as the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights for Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch, and Amnesty International, are leading these inquiries.

These investigations are centred on the number of girls detained, their arrest methods and conditions, where they are being held, and the events following their detention. The Taliban's Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice has recently arrested a significant number of girls and women in various cities, including Kabul and Daikundi, for not adhering to the group's dress standards.

The Taliban's actions have met widespread international criticism. The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) highlighted that the Taliban's arrests have primarily targeted women and girls in Hazara and Tajik-populated areas of Kabul.

Earlier the Taliban issued a directive warning that failure to comply with its dress code would result in punishment and potential imprisonment of female relatives. Human Rights Watch has underscored the continued violations of women's and girls' rights into 2023, with Afghanistan being the only country where they are denied access to secondary and higher education and barred from most jobs in both the public and private sectors.

According to these human rights organisations, the pattern of abuse against women and girls in Afghanistan constitutes gender-based crimes against humanity.