By Muzhda Mohammadi
After three months of unjust imprisonment by the Taliban, Mahsa* faced her most cruel test yet – her father’s shame. He did not believe she was innocent.
“As soon as I said ‘Hello,’ my father angrily approached me, raised his hand as if to strike me, saying, ‘You’ve disgraced me, you’ve made me bow my head in front of both friends and foes. How did this happen? Why were you taken away?’” Mahsa* said.
“My father felt ashamed. Perhaps his pride couldn’t accept it.”
The 24-year-old was charged with “moral corruption” – a trumped up charge used merely to detain her. Mahsa said she was also imprisoned for her father’s work in the previous government’s military.
She had been a final-year midwifery student at a private institute in the province when Taliban intelligence officers detained her at the doorstep of her house in 2022.
She said the Talibs simply announced without greeting or formalities to her mother: “Due to corruption, we need to take your eldest daughter with us for investigation”
When Mahsa tried to inquire and understand the reason for her arrest, a Taliban intelligence officer snapped at her to be quiet. “Whatever it is will be proven in court,” she was told.
But despite the lack of evidence, no proper trial, and even knowing that she may have been targeted as retribution for her father’s work, Mahsa has experienced a rejection from her family that she did not expect.
She said any hope of returning to her life before prison quickly faded when confronted with all the judgement, and soon she left to make a fresh start.
“I was under pressure; my father was angry with me, and people were gossiping about me in terms of the Taliban taking me and ‘who knows what they did’. These words torment me. I couldn’t stay in the neighbourhood,” she said.
Sentenced to shame and vitriol
The surveillance, arrest, and torture of women in Taliban prisons have become a major concern in Afghanistan and a vicious strategy for the Taliban to suppress women in the past three years.
Many reports of the detention and abuse of women have been published, with people detained for various “crimes” of peaceful protesting the Taliban’s repressive policies, even if only online, wearing a headscarf “improperly”, and running away from home – even if that home is violent.
The Taliban has stated that around 1,000 women are imprisoned in their facilities on various charges. However, women’s rights activists argue that the actual number is much higher.
United Nations Special Rapporteur for Afghanistan Richard Bennett reported to the UN General Assembly n August 2024 that there’s evidence that women in Taliban prisons have been subjected to rape and sexual assault.
Once released, he reported that women also suffer from societal rejection. Afghanistan’s conservative culture often treats rape and sexual violation as the shame of the victim.
“Some former detainees told the Special Rapporteur that, although they were not subjected to sexual violence in detention, they still suffered stigma and ostracization within their families and communities, who did not believe that they had not been assaulted,” the report said.
The torment of threats and abuse
It didn’t matter that Mahsa was not sexually assaulted while in detention – her association with jail ultimately drove her to leave her neighbourhood. For the past two years, she has been living in a neighboring country without legal residency documents, working in a sewing workshop.
But Mahsa said the treatment while in prison was nonetheless abusive with things like inadequate warmth or bedding, and more so on a psychological level.
Mahsa said, for example, that one day, a female Taliban enforcer about 50 years old spoke to her saying she’d been told Mahsa would soon be tied up in the back of a car and beaten publicly in the city.
“I had accepted my death. I kept telling myself that even though I hadn’t done anything, they would tie me to the back of a vehicle and beat me,” Mahsa said.
“I wouldn’t even have the right to speak about my innocence. I wouldn’t even be able to look at anyone, not even my father.”
Public punishment is a routine practice for the Taliban with regular reports made publicly available on how many lashes women and men have received, mostly on charges of moral corruption.
Mahsa said she appeared twice in a Taliban court, but the Taliban judge did not provide any clear explanation regarding the charges against her but focused rather on her father.
“After the trial finished, I still didn’t understand the reason for my arrest, and they didn’t make it clear why I was taken,” she said.
“Instead, all the questions were about my father – what was your father’s occupation, what did he do.”
Mahsa described how her mother came to the prison gate every day, tearfully begging the Taliban forces to allow her to see her daughter. Her two sisters, filled with concern, would ask their mother, ‘Will they kill her?’
She said that her mother would sometimes faint from the intensity of her crying while visiting her.
“My mother was worried that the Taliban would beat and torture me,” she said.
There are concerns that under Taliban rule in Afghanistan, prisoners without charges are left awaiting an uncertain future.
Mahsa, who spent three months of her life in prison, recalled innocent women she met while in prison. Such as the woman who had filed for divorce from her husband due to abuse, who was incarcerated with a bruised and battered appearance.
She told Mahsa how her husband beats me and how she had gone several times to the Taliban but they always told her to reconcile. Finally, they brought the woman to prison – the only place that would protect her from her husband.
Never free, despite freedom
Since leaving Afghanistan, Taliban forces have been trying to pressure Mahsa’s family to force her to return.
“They contacted my family asking where I had gone, and whether someone from our family had killed me because I went to prison,” she said, a sign that the Taliban is aware of the stigma and penalties some girls and women are paying for detentions.
Two documents seen by Rukhshana Media carry the title and stamp of the Taliban intelligence. One states that Mahsa should be re-arrested, because she failed to appear before the Taliban court on the scheduled date.
In the other, dated 2023, it’s written that Mahsa was attempting to leave the country and should be arrested at the border crossings of Afghanistan.
Rukhshana Media cannot verify the authenticity of these documents with the Taliban. However, both letters have serial numbers, the official stamp of the Taliban Intelligence Department, and signatures.
At Mahsa’s request, her real name, the province where she was imprisoned, and her father’s name are not included in this report.
The price of avoiding Taliban injustice
Despite a heart full of pain and regret, Mahsa said she will never return to Afghanistan under the rule of the Taliban.
“I was studying at the university, my sisters were going to school, and my father would go to work every morning and return home in the evening. We had no problems,” she said.
“But since the Taliban came, our troubles began, and we haven’t seen a single happy day. Our entire day passes in tears. My sisters are even afraid to leave the house.”
*Name has been changed to for security reasons.
