By Haniya Frotan
A hospital worker in Afghanistan has told Rukhshana Media how she was abducted by the Taliban, held captive and gang-raped over several days before being abandoned in the desert and left to die, in what she believes was a punishment for doing her job.
The 23-year-old said she had been repeatedly warned against continuing with her work at the hospital by the Taliban’s so-called morality enforcers in the run-up to her abduction, but carried on doing so because she was the sole breadwinner for her family of seven. The Taliban have banned women from most forms of employment, and severely restricted their right even to leave their homes.
“I always went to work fully covered and never had contact with male colleagues. The last time they came, they warned me again and left. A few days later, they abducted me,” said the woman, who asked to be named as Suraya. We are withholding her real name, details of her job and her current whereabouts for her protection.
Suraya has not told anyone except her closest relatives what happened – until now. Her attackers warned her not to speak, she says. They also videoed her rape, a technique used by the Taliban to deter survivors from telling anyone what happened for fear that the footage will be made public. But in an interview with Rukhshana Media nearly a year after her horrific ordeal, she said she felt she had to speak out.
Speaking haltingly, her voice filled with tears, Suraya described how on September 15 last year, she left the hospital in her home town of Balkh in northern Afghanistan after finishing for the day and headed for home. She’d only walked a short way when three armed men dressed in civilian clothes, their faces covered, blocked her way.
“I was terrified. I screamed and pleaded, but the alley was empty,” she said. “One of them hit me on the head with the butt of his rifle. Everything went dark. When I fell to the ground, two of them dragged me into the vehicle.”
They drove her to a deserted house with a courtyard and a handful of rooms and put her into a room where there were three other women.
“All three women were very scared, and no one said a word. I asked questions, but no one responded. After two hours, two armed men entered the room and transferred me to another empty room,” said Suraya.
They spent the first night torturing and insulting her, she said, describing how she was whipped with cables and called a “whore” who had “polluted society”. Photographs Suraya shared with Rukhshana Media show bruises and wounds from cable beatings on parts of her body.
The following night, the three men who had abducted her came into the room and beat and raped her. “I felt dizzy, as if they had given me drugs. I only remember being violated, their hands on my body,” she said, through tears. “All three of them had their faces covered. When I regained consciousness, I was bleeding and felt a heavy pain. I realised I had been dishonoured.”
Suraya said she was held captive by the Taliban for four days and during that time, her attackers were the only people who spoke to her. At one point, bleeding heavily, she pleaded with a female staff member in the compound who brought food and water to the detainees for sanitary pads, but the woman did not respond. “No matter how much I asked, screamed, or cried, it was useless,” said Suraya.
After four days, Suraya’s captors brought her a sheaf of papers and forced her to sign them without allowing her to read them. She suspects they were fake confessions – a common practice under the Taliban. She was then ordered into a vehicle, blindfolded and driven into the desert, where they warned her against telling anyone what had happened and abandoned her.
Miraculously, she survived. She managed to drag herself to the road, where she tried to flag down cars, eventually finding a driver who was willing to help.
“My clothes were bloody, my face unwashed, and I was disoriented,” she said. “I asked for help from everyone, but they ran away from me. After much begging and pleading, one driver agreed to call my father and tell him where I was. I don’t remember the exact location, but it was about half an hour from the city centre.”
For many months, Suraya kept quiet to protect her elderly parents and her sisters, scared by her captors’ threats and the video footage they had of her. Only her close family knew about her ordeal – they had been desperately worried about her when she went missing for four days, and saw the terrible state she was in when her father found her and brought her home.
Suraya’s sister Tooba spoke to Rukhshana Media to corroborate her story. She recalled how the family had visited Taliban security offices multiple times after Suraya disappeared to try to get answers, but were given none. “For four days, there was no news. We kept going to the Taliban’s district offices, saying our sister was missing. But they always ignored us. They just said, ‘Go home, she’ll come back.’”
When her sister eventually came back, she was “in a terrible state”, with bruises all over her body. Her clothing was soaked in blood and her hair had been cut off. “When we saw her like that, we were all in shock,” said Tooba, whose real name we are withholding for her protection. “The whole family was struck dumb.”
Her mother has been unwell ever since and now suffers from regular seizures. For six months after she came home, Suraya was on medication for anxiety and lived in a tiny corner of the family home, plagued by nightmares and in constant fear. “Every time I hear a door open or close, my heart races. I think the Taliban are back. I start shaking,” she said.
It is not the first instance of the Taliban filming themselves raping young women and threatening to release the footage to coerce them into silence. Earlier this year, Rukhshana Media and The Guardian reported on a video showing five armed Taliban members gang-raping a woman prisoner who had taken part in protests against the group.
Women’s rights activists say many cases like Suraya’s are never made public. “Taliban prisons have turned into centres of torture and rape. Women and girls in these places face organised violence that causes irreparable harm,” said Rahel Talash, a human rights activist.
She pointed to another case in which a young woman became pregnant after being gang-raped by the Taliban in prison. She fled to a neighbouring country where she had an abortion. “These sufferings are beyond imagination,” Talash said.
Rukhshana Media has documented several cases of gang-rape of women and girls by the Taliban over the past four years since the group returned to power. The U.N. Human Rights Council, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have also confirmed instances of torture and sexual violence against women in Taliban-run prisons.
Before the Taliban’s return, Suraya dreamed of making a difference. She was studying medicine when the group banned women from higher education, and even when that dream ended, she was determined to keep working.
“Before, I believed I could change my life and others’. Now, I just want to survive,” she said.
“I may never be able to return to the life I had. But if my voice can save even one other girl from this hell, it will be worth it.”
