Posted by New Delhi: The Taliban will resume stoning to death as punishment for adultery for women in Afghanistan. The announcement was made by the Taliban’s Supreme Leader, Mullah Hibatullah Akhundzada, in a voice message aired on state TV last Saturday. In a video, Akhundzada stated that the women’s rights promoted by the international community contradicted the Taliban’s understanding of Islamic Sharia law.
“You say it’s a violation of women’s rights when we stone them to death. But we will soon implement the punishment for adultery. We will flog women in public. We will stone them to death in public,” he said. “The Taliban’s work did not end with the takeover of Kabul, it has only just begun,” Akhundzada added, as reported by The Telegraph.
Since the Taliban regained control in 2021, women in Afghanistan have confronted a barrage of obstacles. Education, employment, and public engagement have been virtually inaccessible for girls and women in the nation ravaged by conflict.
Taliban bans girls attending school
Only a month after their return to power, the Taliban authorities enforced a ban on girls attending secondary school. By December 2022, they had shut the doors of universities to female students and severely curtailed their involvement in the workforce.
The poor condition of women in Afghanistan
A UN report labelled the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan as the ” worst globally,” cautioning that the Taliban’s governance policies, grounded in their rigid interpretation of Islam, risked constituting a form of “gender apartheid.” For numerous families, the sole viable option for their daughters seems to be marriage, irrespective of their consent, as highlighted by a young student quoted by AFP. “The pervasiveness of depression is alarming. Over the past two years, the rate of suicide among girls has surged significantly. It’s a tragic reality,” she told the news agency.