Taliban Ministry Reports Handling Over 3,500 Women’s Rights Complaints
The Taliban’s Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice announced that it has registered 3,511 complaints related to women’s rights over the past ten months, claiming to have addressed 3,481 of them.
In a statement released on Sunday, the ministry said these complaints were submitted concerning “women’s rights based on Sharia law.” According to the ministry’s claims, just in the past week, it has prevented 73 cases of domestic violence and 9 forced marriages, and ensured inheritance rights for 15 women.
The Taliban administration emphasized that, under its leadership’s directive, efforts to protect women’s rights within the framework of Sharia law will continue and any form of “oppression and abuse” will be prevented. This comes despite the fact that over the last four years, the same administration has imposed extensive restrictions on women’s education, employment, and social participation in Afghanistan, triggering widespread domestic and international criticism.
Human rights organizations have repeatedly stated that depriving women of secondary and higher education, banning them from working in many institutions, and restricting their movement without a male guardian have posed serious challenges to the lives of millions of Afghan women. Despite the recent claims by the Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue, fundamental restrictions on women’s basic rights remain in place.
The ministry has called on citizens to report violations of women’s rights and family disputes to the authority for review and resolution, as they say.
