AFGHANISTAN – Horrific stories of violence against women continue to pour out of Afghanistan as Americans continue their evacuation from the country, including the raping of the living and the dead by Taliban fighters.

A young Afghan girl identified as “Muskan” who fled Afghanistan to India after threats from a jihadist group, told News18 that the Taliban have been seizing women from “each household” as they conquer towns:

“When we were there, we received numerous warnings. If you go to work, you are under threat, your family is under threat. After one warning, they would stop giving any warning.

“They rape dead bodies too. They don’t care whether the person is dead or alive. Can you imagine this?”

Muskan said that women identified by the Taliban as those who aided the U.S.-supported Afghan government were especially at risk of reprisal. She said the Taliban promised a “horrible destiny” for those women.

 

Shabana Basij-Rasikh, the founder of the School of Leadership Afghanistan, the only all-girl boarding school in Afghanistan, said that she is burning school records to protect students who attended and their families from Taliban violence:

“As the founder of the only all-girls boarding school in Afghanistan, I’m burning my students’ records not to erase them, but to protect them and their families. I’m making this statement to mainly reassure the families of our students whose records we burned and our supporters of our safety.”

Although Basij-Rasikh said she feels safe, she is concerned about others in the country as the Taliban re-imposes Sharia law, which does not afford women many rights:

“The fire in me to invest in the education of Afghan girls who have no way out grows brighter, stronger, and louder… The time to appropriately express my gratitude will come. But right now, there are many who aren’t or increasingly don’t feel safe. I’m broken and devastated for them.”

 

Under the Taliban’s version of Sharia Law, women can get an education but not in a regular school, college, or madrasas where boys or men study, as women are not allowed to interact with boys over 12 or men who are not family.

Women who violate Sharia law under the Taliban have been sentenced to punishments including flogging and stoning to death.

The Taliban enforced strict and brutal rule over women when they ruled the country prior to the U.S. intervention that forced them from power.

Although the Taliban have recently claimed they would respect women’s rights, evidence coming out of the country suggests otherwise.

Zabihullah Mujahid, the Taliban’s longtime spokesman, promised this week that the Taliban would honor women’s rights within the norms of Islamic law. What those norms were was not explained.

The Taliban have encouraged women to return to work and have allowed girls to return to school, handing out Islamic headscarves at the door. A female news anchor was permitted to interview a Taliban official in a TV studio.

Most of the world is concerned that the Taliban leadership is putting on a show of tolerance until all international influence leaves the country, and then they will revert back to their violent past.

Sanam Naraghi Anderlini, founder and CEO of the International Civil Society Action Network (ICAN) and director of the Centre for Women, Peace, and Security at the London School of Economics, described the situation faced by women inside the country:

 

“Do we take them for their word and say: ‘Oh it’s going to be fine, this is Taliban 2.0, they’ve evolved.’ Or do we take them for their actions?

“Once the diplomats leave, the journalists leave, the international NGOs leave, they are going to basically lock the doors… God knows what we’ll see then.”