New Delhi

Afghan teenage girls and young women arrested by the country's Taliban rulers for wearing "bad hijab" told media that they were subjected to sexual violence and assault in detention. Reporters from Afghan news service Zan News were told that in more than one case the arrests and sexual abuse that young women faced in detention led to suicide. 

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Earlier, the United Nations had said that many women were detained by the country's Taliban administrators for "bad hijab" in December 2023 and January 2024. This followed a Taliban decree that women must cover themselves from head to toe, revealing just their eyes.

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Back then, the UN called the arrests "concerning". But the reporters of the Guardian were told that the girls were subjected to beatings and intimidation while in detention.

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The Guardian report cites a 16-year-old Zahra (name changed) who along with another teenage girl was arrested from a shop in west Kabul in December 2023. The girls were reportedly released after two weeks. When she came home, Zahra was “not the girl who had left home two weeks before”.

“I ran and hugged her, but she cried and said, ‘I am dishonoured.’ For the rest of that day, Zahra didn’t eat or talk,” her mother told the Guardian.

Also watch | Afghan women speak to WION from the ground: 'We want our freedoms back' | WION Originals

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"She only sat in a room and cried. I couldn’t dare to ask about what had happened," she said.

A 22-year-old medical student Amina spent three nights in a Taliban prison after being arrested in January 2024. She said she was interrogated by an older man who asked her about her menstruation and whether she was married or not.

"I fell at his feet and begged him, 'Please, kill me but don’t harass me'," she said. "He said: 'Since you are keen to die, I will kill you, but before that, let us have fun with you.'

"Then he started touching my private parts," Amina said. "I fainted twice during the interrogation, but every time, he poured cold water over my head."

Earlier this year, the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue told the Associated Press that the women who were arrested "violated Islamic values and rituals and encouraged society and other respected sisters to go for bad hijab … (in) every province, those who go without hijab will be arrested."

Later, the Taliban denied that such arrests had taken place in the first place. 

(With inputs from agencies)