Taliban govt annuls divorces, forces women to return to abusive husbands

In a fresh blow to the women in Afghanistan, couple of days ahead of International Women’s Day, reports by AFP, suggest that the Taliban regime is forcing women to go back to their abusive husbands. 

They are being forced to return to their husbands they had divorced. 

The AFP talked about an Afghani woman, Marwa, a domestic abuse victim. She was one of a small number of women who, under the previous US-backed government, were granted legal separation in Afghanistan. 

However, Marwa has now resorted to hiding with her eight children as the Taliban government forces her to reunite with her husband. 

According to AFP, when Taliban forces swept into power in 2021, her husband claimed he was forced into a divorce and commanders ordered her back to his clutches. “My daughters and I cried a lot that day,” Marwa, 40, whose name has been changed for her own protection, told AFP.

The Taliban government adheres to an austere interpretation of Islam and has imposed severe restrictions on women's lives that the United Nations (UN) called “gender-based apartheid”.

Lawyers told AFP that women have reported being dragged back into marriages after Taliban commanders annulled their divorces.

In Afghanistan nine in 10 women will experience physical, sexual, or psychological violence from their partner, according to the UN’s mission in the country.

Divorce, however, is often more taboo than the abuse itself and the culture remains unforgiving to women who part with their husbands.

Under the previous government, divorce rates were steadily rising in some cities, where the small gains in women's rights were largely limited to education and employment.

A nationwide network of shelters and services that once supported women has almost entirely collapsed, while the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the Human Rights Commission have been erased.