Ruchi Kumar is a Mumbai-based journalist who covers conflict, politics and gender. From 2014 to 2021, she reported out of Kabul.
In a March broadcast on Afghan state media, Supreme Leader Mullah Haibatlullah Akhundzada declared that the Taliban will restore public flogging and stoning as punishments, particularly against women convicted of moral crimes, as part of its fundamentalist interpretation and strict enforcement of sharia law in the country.
“We will flog the women … we will stone them to death in public [for moral crimes],” Mr. Akhundzada said in the brash message, which appeared to be aimed squarely at governments and other audiences in the West, which have frequently criticized the Taliban’s regressive policies. “You may call it a violation of women’s rights when we publicly stone or flog them for committing adultery because they conflict with your democratic principles … [But] I represent Allah, and you represent Satan.”
In one sense, this was not news; his brazen words only confirmed the brutality of punishments that Taliban authorities have already been visiting upon people violating Islamic law. Last year, the Taliban’s Supreme Court sanctioned stoning, flogging and even burying a convict under a wall as acceptable punishment. And according to the human-rights monitoring group Afghan Witness, Taliban-appointed judges ordered 417 instances of flogging and execution between October, 2022 and October, 2023, of which 57 were meted out to women. Many of these punishments were held in stadiums and other public areas.
But the latest announcement is a formalized throwback to the most regressive period of the Taliban’s rule in the 1990s. And worryingly, Mr. Akhundzada’s message signals that, three years after returning to power in Afghanistan, the group is far less concerned about Western criticism as it assertively singles out women for oppression, in spite of previous claims that it had moved past such cruelty.
Since taking over Afghanistan in August, 2021, the Taliban have enacted policies aimed at erasing the freedom and agency of women. They’ve banned women from high schools and universities, as well as most public spaces. Their movement is also restricted and controlled by their male guardians, and they have been forbidden from working.
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The Taliban have also dismantled existing justice frameworks, deeming them to be Western and un-Islamic. The group suspended the Western-influenced constitution, as well as laws that had helped protect women, including the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs was replaced by the Ministry of Preventing Vice and Promoting Virtue, which is now implementing and enforcing the strict morality code, and ministries such as the attorney-general’s office were dissolved.
However, despite claims that they have implemented Islamic jurisprudence instead, the regime has failed to codify many laws or create functioning institutions and mechanisms for its people. Afghanistan is now one of the few countries anywhere in the world without laws protecting women. And so while the lack of a justice system also affects Afghan men, women have been left particularly vulnerable, as they lack any legal or judicial recourse if they’re accused of a moral crime.
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And yet, the de facto government in Afghanistan continues to aspire for recognition from the same Western democracies that it has defied. Ultimately, the Taliban need the West, on which it continues to rely for humanitarian aid, but which has frozen Afghanistan’s international assets abroad amid a brutal financial crisis in the country. But Mr. Akhundzada’s provocation suggests that the Taliban are frustrated that they have yet to receive recognition, and by asserting itself on issues that Western agencies and governments have previously raised concerns over, such as women’s rights, the regime seems to be attempting to justify its legitimacy as a valid government. It may also be the case that the Taliban’s resolve was strengthened by China’s January recognition of a former Taliban spokesman as an official envoy; they may believe that the legitimacy they seek from the West can be replaced by support from Beijing, which appears less concerned with moral standards. The group’s leaders have also been seeking support from governments in the region and in the Middle East, many of which are Islamic countries with sophisticated legal institutions and laws.
As stakeholder government and international bodies navigate their relationship with the Taliban, it is imperative that they consider the Taliban’s failures to provide legal protections for its population, and their targeted abuse of women. So far, however, there has been little international reaction to Mr. Akhundzada’s announcement beyond the United Nations and human rights groups.
There is now an urgent need for a cohesive international effort to pressure the Taliban to restore rights to Afghanistan’s women. The West cannot abandon them – because if they do, the Taliban will only be further emboldened.