{"id":37038,"date":"2025-05-30T10:58:53","date_gmt":"2025-05-30T07:28:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/?p=37038"},"modified":"2025-05-30T11:07:12","modified_gmt":"2025-05-30T07:37:12","slug":"imprisoned-and-gang-raped-by-the-taliban-an-afghan-ex-soldier-speaks-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/imprisoned-and-gang-raped-by-the-taliban-an-afghan-ex-soldier-speaks-out\/","title":{"rendered":"Imprisoned and gang-raped by the Taliban: An Afghan ex-soldier speaks out"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Warning: This report contains accounts of sexual assault.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Haniya Frotan<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taliban had been back in power in Afghanistan for barely two weeks when armed men burst into the home Shogufa Safari shared with her husband and children, assaulted and abducted her. Over the next five days, she was locked up, beaten and repeatedly raped by her Taliban captors, who she says targeted her for her work as an officer in the Afghan army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safari, now 28, recalls hearing her children scream in fear as she was dragged from her home by armed men, her face bloody from the beatings they had inflicted on her and her husband. They locked her up in a metal shipping container with no food or water, she says, and only released her after her family paid the Taliban 200,000 Afghanis ($2,850).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey didn\u2019t do anything to me during the day, but at night, the real nightmare began,\u201d Safari told a Rukhshana Media reporter by phone from a neighbouring country where she now lives in exile with her three children.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe first night I was whipped and beaten. But on the second and third nights there was no limit to their brutality. Three or four people attacked me and gang-raped me. They shouted that I was a Hazara infidel and a prostitute and that I deserved it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safari\u2019s voice trembles as she describes the ordeal, which led to the break-up of her marriage and a suicide attempt, and forced her to flee her home country. Although she is now in a neighbouring country, which Rukhshana is not disclosing for fear of jeopardising her safety, she still lives in fear of being forcibly returned to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked why she had chosen to speak publicly about what happened to her after nearly four years of silence, Safari said it had been an \u201cincredibly difficult\u201d thing to do, but that she couldn\u2019t stay silent when she realised other women like her had suffered similar attacks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cOne woman I knew was murdered after being raped by the Taliban. A young woman in Ghor set herself on fire,\u201d she said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t stay silent any longer.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Evidence of sexual violence against women and girls held by the Taliban has mounted in recent years. In a report last year, the UN\u2019s special rapporteur on Afghanistan Richard Bennett, said he had received credible accounts of sexual violence<\/a> meted out to women and girls in Taliban prisons and said the culture of silence and victim-blaming surrounding such attacks meant many such cases had likely gone unreported.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rukhshana Media and the Guardian<\/a> reported last July on a video showing a female protester being gang-raped and tortured by armed men in a Taliban prison, the first direct evidence of such crimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Revenge attacks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Taliban pledged an amnesty for former members of the Afghan military and police when they swept to power in 2021. In fact, they began carrying out reprisals almost immediately, according to numerous reports, including by the United Nations and Human Rights Watch<\/a>. An investigation by The New York Times<\/a> found they carried out hundreds of revenge killings in the early months of their leadership.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But while such killings are relatively well documented, incidences of gang-rape committed in reprisal for serving in the forces are less known, in part because of the consequences for survivors of speaking out in a country where rape still carries immense stigma.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Shogufa Safari , third from the right, in a former Afghan army uniform and among her comrades\/image: Supplied<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Since the Taliban\u2019s return to power, many women who served in the armed forces have told Rukhshana they fear reprisals<\/a>. Safari said three of the four women who served in her unit have fled Afghanistan, while the whereabouts of the fourth is unknown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the situation in Afghanistan, it\u2019s impossible to independently verify Safari\u2019s story, but photographs she shared with Rukhshana Media show whip marks, extensive bruising, signs of physical blows, and deep bite marks across various parts of her body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Rukhshana spoke to a source who knows Safari and was waiting for her outside the police station when she was released. \u201cShe was completely unrecognizable \u2014 even her clothes were in tatters,\u201d said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity. \u201cI wrapped her in a blanket and brought her home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 6,600 women worked in the Afghan security services before 2021, according to the previous government, and they faced both societal stigma and systemic discrimination in the institutions they joined.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safari said she participated in security and military operations in Kabul, Nimroz, and Helmand provinces during her career. She told Rukhshana Media that her family initially opposed her decision to join the army, but eventually came to support her, and she served five years before the force was disbanded when the Taliban returned to power. When the country finally fell to the former rebel fighters, Safari and her family stayed home, not daring to venture outside for fear of retaliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was one in the morning. I had barely fallen asleep, overwhelmed by anxiety and fear, when the loud banging on our door jolted me awake,\u201d she said of the night she was taken away. \u201cI was terrified, my heart was pounding. When we opened the door, six or seven armed men stormed in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A witness to Safari’s arrest, speaking on condition of anonymity, said her children were crying loudly as she was dragged away, and her husband had been badly beaten.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A life shattered<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Safari\u2019s incarceration and gang rape, however horrific, was to be only the beginning of her ordeal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Six months later, her husband divorced her, leaving her to take care of their three children alone in a country where women are no longer permitted even to leave the home to work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI lived with him for 10 years. I coped with all the hardships. But he said he was ashamed of what people said,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis parents called me a stain and said I had taken away the honor of the family. He said, ‘You don’t need me any more, our children will be yours.’\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trauma pushed Safari to the brink of a mental breakdown. \u201cEvery time I woke up, the images of those nights were right before my eyes,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For a year, she underwent medical treatment and psychotherapy, relying on sleeping pills and antidepressants to try to escape the nightmares. At one point, she took rat poison in an attempt to end her life, and was only saved by her family taking her to hospital, the acquaintance who met Safari outside the police station recalls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to women\u2019s rights activists, the inhumane treatment of female detainees by the Taliban is part of a broader strategy to suppress and silence women.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThese women not only struggle with physical and psychological trauma, but they are also rejected by society,\u201d says Zahra Yagana, an Afghan activist. \u201cIt\u2019s a double catastrophe.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Within two years of the rape, Safari knew she could no longer stay in Afghanistan. With the help of friends, she left Afghanistan with her children through smuggling routes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even there, she relied on antidepressants for months. She has recently stopped taking them and says her condition has improved, but she lives in constant fear of being sent back to Afghanistan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIf I fall into the hands of the Taliban again, I won\u2019t survive \u2014 neither will my three children,\u201d she said. \u201cThis time, multiple lives are at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Warning: This report contains accounts of sexual assault. By Haniya Frotan The Taliban had been back in power in Afghanistan for barely two weeks when armed men burst into the home Shogufa Safari shared with her husband and children, assaulted and abducted her. Over the next five days, she was locked up, beaten and repeatedly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":37039,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard"},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[9581,902],"tags":[11426,11427],"class_list":["post-37038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-work-en","category-reports-en","tag-ex-soldier","tag-gang-raped"],"yoast_head":"\nImprisoned and gang-raped by the Taliban: An Afghan ex-soldier speaks out - Rukhshana Media<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Taliban had been back in power in Afghanistan for barely two weeks when armed men burst into the home Shogufa Safari\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/rukhshana.com\/en\/imprisoned-and-gang-raped-by-the-taliban-an-afghan-ex-soldier-speaks-out\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Imprisoned and gang-raped by the Taliban: An Afghan ex-soldier speaks out - 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