By Ghazaal Mohammadi and Ziba Balkhi
Last month, the Taliban issued a new decree on marriage that makes it almost impossible for a woman to get a divorce unless their husband agrees. The document, approved by the Taliban’s top leader, throws up fresh legal obstacles to women that most experts say amount to a block on divorce, in a country where gender-based violence is rife.
Among the legal obstacles are a new requirement for women to provide several witnesses to support their evidence that their marriage is no longer tenable. No such requirement exists for men seeking to divorce. A judge also cannot grant a divorce to a woman solely on the basis of abuse unless her husband agrees to it.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, was among the many critics of the document, which reportedly sparked rare demonstrations in Kabul last month. It said the edict “operates within a completely unequal framework: while men have the unilateral right to divorce, women must use complicated and narrow judicial routes to separate from their husbands.”
Responding to the widespread criticism, Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told a state-controlled broadcaster the group should “give no importance to the objections of those who are hostile”.
Even before this new edict, the Taliban had created a context in which women have no choice but to stay with abusive husbands. The Taliban courts that decide whether a divorce can be granted are all-male affairs, and the group has legitimised and formalised a system of male supremacy.
We spoke to two women who’ve experienced this at first hand, one the mother of a teenage girl committed to a marriage she does not want, the other a woman seeking to divorce her abusive husband.
‘When a woman has no man, no one listens’
Three years ago, Rahila* arranged a marriage for her teenage daughter through a relative who helped her find the groom, a 30-year-old man whom neither she nor the bride-to-be had ever met. Rahila’s own husband had long since moved away, leaving her with three children to bring up alone, and this seemed like a way to secure her daughter’s future.
The two families met for the first time to sign the marriage contract, she said, and she accepted half the money the families had agreed for the so-called “bride price”, a sum of money the groom’s family traditionally pays for the marriage, of 420,000 Afghanis (about $6,000). But Rahila’s daughter, who was 15 at the time, was unhappy with the arrangement from the start. Things only became worse after the family discovered that her husband-to-be was addicted to drugs, but by that time, Rahila, 38, had already spent what, for her, were large sums of money organizing the engagement ceremony.
But her daughter continued to oppose the match and was spiraling into depression. Eventually, Rahila decided to help her daughter to get out of the marriage. But, she said, the judge ruled that she would have to repay the bride price to secure the split – a sum she doesn’t have. In September, her daughter was sent to jail after refusing to move into her husband’s home, according to legal documents obtained by Rukhshana Media and Rahila’s own testimony.
“Eight and a half months of my daughter’s youth have been wasted in prison,” she said. “I wish she had committed a crime so she could serve a sentence and be released. She is imprisoned without any crime… She calls me from prison every moment, crying, saying that if I don’t get her out, she will kill herself.”
Mohammad Amin Fayeq, a former prosecutor under the previous Afghan regime, said disputes related to divorce and financial claims were considered civil matters under Afghan law, and that “no person can be prosecuted or imprisoned due to debt or failure to pay a financial obligation.”
Imprisoning women for failing to repay the so-called bride price that a groom’s family traditionally pays “lacks any valid foundation in both Islamic jurisprudence and formal law,” he said. “Such practices not only fail to resolve familial disputes but also actively exacerbate violence, undermine human dignity, and contribute to the broader reproduction of injustice.”
Rahila, who also has two sons aged 12 and 14, supports her family by working as a housekeeper. She also has to cover her daughter’s living expenses in prison, and said she got so desperate she would sell a kidney if it was allowed.
She said she went to the court again just before last month’s Eid celebrations to seek her daughter’s temporary release but was told she must either provide the money or bring a formal property document as collateral. Her son-in-law’s family has refused to help, she said. Rukhshana Media was unable to speak with the family to confirm this.
“I call them repeatedly, but I get no response, and I don’t have a man who could go to their house and speak with them,” she said. “When a woman has no man with her, no one listens to her.”
‘Whatever he does, he has the right to do’
Zeba* decided to seek a divorce five months ago, after enduring four years of abuse from her husband. The 27-year-old said she carried visible marks of a beating when she went to a Taliban court to request a divorce. Yet the judge asked her husband to swear that he had not beaten his wife, and ruled in his favour.
Even the Taliban’s own penal code, published earlier this year, states that a man who beats his wife so hard that it leaves a visible mark must be sent to prison. But Zeba said her 33-year-old husband was not even reprimanded by the judge. Instead, she was forced to return to his house.
“All of my husband’s cruelty was clearly visible,” Zeba, who has a two-year-old daughter, told Rukhshana Media by phone, speaking on condition of anonymity. “I had photos of my bruised body. The marks of beating and torture were still on my face. I swore and cried, but the judge did not believe me.”
Instead, she was told to provide a witness to this most private of abuses, which included beating her with a stick, punching her in the face and throwing hot tea over her, causing burns.
When she did manage to find someone who would back up her testimony in court, she said, the judge ignored it.
“In court, [my husband] swore falsely that he loved his wife, that he had not beaten her, and that he did not want to give her a divorce. The judge did not believe my documents or my witness and accepted only my husband’s oath. He ruled that I could not get a divorce from my husband.
“I was the oppressed one, but the judge made me out to be the oppressor. He told me, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of accusing your husband?’,” she said.
One lawyer who currently represents clients before Taliban courts spoke to Rukhshana Media on condition of anonymity. He said the judge should accept signs of violence as evidence and, in the absence of witnesses, a claimant should be able to swear an oath.
However, the lawyer said it was not uncommon for Taliban courts to ignore judicial procedure in cases of violence against women and to rule in a way that favours the man.
He said many such rulings were issued verbally and never formally recorded in writing.
“The woman is treated as if the judge were the husband’s defence lawyer. They blame her, blame her again… they warn her, threaten her, humiliate and insult her, accuse her of a thousand things, and use ugly words against women such as prostitute, whore, and other words that are not appropriate for us to repeat.”
Zeba said she made up her mind to seek a divorce after her husband refused to give her permission to visit her sick father, then beat her just for asking. But the abuse has gone on since the start. “Since the day I got married until now, I have never seen peace,” she said.
Rukhshana Media was not able to speak with Zeba’s husband or with Taliban judicial authorities about this case, but was able to corroborate some of her story through a separate, independent source who cannot be identified.
Zeba told Rukhshana Media that she has no choice but to endure the violence.
“My husband’s cruelty has not decreased at all,” she said. “Now he treats me even more cruelly and has imprisoned me at home.”
Note: Names marked with an asterisk have been changed for safety reasons
