What Happens to Women After They Leave Taliban Prisons?
Najiba, a pseudonym, is a 19-year-old woman who had been engaged for only six months and had not yet moved into her husband’s home. But after she was detained by the Taliban, what took her life away was not the three nights she spent in prison, but people’s judgement and remarks.
When she returned home from prison, she still did not know that during those few days of detention, her fiancé’s family had decided to end the relationship.
Najiba says the reason for the separation was not the detention itself, but the rumours, taunts and questions circulating about women who are taken to Taliban prisons.
It began on the day Najiba left home to go to the tailoring workshop where she worked.
She says that following protests in Herat over compulsory dress rules, she was travelling in a taxi wearing a manteau when officials from the Taliban vice and virtue officers stopped the taxi and made her get out.
Najiba recalls that day: “I had left home wearing a manteau, which is genuinely Islamic hijab, to go to my work at a tailoring workshop. But the Taliban vice and virtue officers stopped the taxi and made me get out. They took me to the vice and virtue department and then transferred me from there to prison.”
She spent three days and nights in detention.
“Eventually, after three days and nights, they released me because they had contacted my father and he guaranteed that I would not wear a manteau again. As soon as I got home, people started talking.”
But before anyone told her anything, Najiba sensed from her father’s behaviour that something had happened.
“When my father came to the prison, I saw that his face had gone pale. He did not speak to me much, but I did not know what had happened. When I got home, no one said anything either. Everything had fallen apart, and no one had anything to say.”
Two days after her release, her mother finally told her something that changed the course of her life.
According to Najiba, one day after her arrest, her fiancé and his father had come to their home and said they no longer wanted the engagement to continue.
Najiba recounts what her mother told her: “My mother said, ‘I don’t know whether I should tell you this or not.’ I asked what had happened. She said, ‘My daughter, the day after you were arrested, your fiancé and his father came to the house and said, “This girl is no longer suitable for us. We are ending the marriage.” They said people were saying that girls are abused in prison and that perhaps your daughter had also been abused. So, here is her divorce paper...’”
While recounting this part, Najiba can no longer continue speaking. Her hands tremble, her face turns red and she begins to cry loudly. She remains silent for several minutes before continuing.
She says her fiancé also contacted her afterwards and said the reason for the separation was “what people were saying”.
“My fiancé was a good man. We knew each other a little. After what happened, he called me and said, ‘Because of what people were saying, I was forced to divorce you. People were saying, God knows what happened to her in prison, God knows how they treated her.’ He said prison gives a woman a bad name, and I was forced to do it.”
For Najiba, the prison door opened after three nights, but what awaited her outside became another prison.
She says she is now worried not only about her future. Fear of what people say about her detention, rumours about what may have happened to her in prison, and the separation before her married life had even begun continue to follow her.
During her interview with Zan News, Najiba repeats one sentence several times:
“I was released from prison, but I live in the prison of people’s words.”
She adds: “The Taliban took my life away from me. Dozens of other girls in prison have been divorced. I wanted nothing from life. My honour was the only thing that mattered to me, and the Taliban took that from me too.”
Najiba says, however, that what happened to her was not the only such story she encountered in prison.
According to her, during her three days and nights in detention, around 11 other women and girls were held with her in one room, and they had also been detained for what the Taliban called “improper hijab”.
“There were around 11 of us in one room, and they said the offence for all of us was improper hijab. But three other women said no one was willing to guarantee their release, not even their husbands. Because as soon as their husbands found out on the first day that they had been arrested, they divorced them.”
Najiba says the problem is not limited to women who remain in detention. Some also face an uncertain future after their release.
“My problem now is not only that I have been divorced. The problem is that other women and girls like me have either been left with no clear future after their release or are still in prison with no idea what will happen to them.”
She also says she heard other accounts in prison from women who had been detained for failing to comply with what the Taliban call “Sharia hijab”. According to Najiba, some of them had neither families willing to take them back nor anyone prepared to guarantee their release.
For Najiba, the three nights of detention are over, but their consequences continue to shape her life. She now speaks of an experience in which a woman’s detention does not end after a few nights behind prison walls. Rumours, social stigma and public judgement can continue the punishment even after her release.
Najiba says in conclusion: “The Taliban did not only play with my fate, they destroyed the lives of several families. The Taliban have turned women into tools of their policies. They have taken thousands of girls and women to prison. What difference does it make whether they are in prison or at home when their rights are taken away and others decide how they should dress? I hope that one day no other woman will experience what happened to me.”
