Women's Addiction Treatment Center or Taliban's Place of Lust?
- Ariahn Raya
- 6 days ago
- 5 min read
Updated: 5 days ago
What Do Drug-Addicted Women Endure in Taliban's Addiction Treatment Prisons?
Since the Taliban's return to power in 2021, women and girls have endured numerous forms of torture, ranging from public lashings to sexual abuse in the group's prisons and addiction treatment centers.
According to statistics released by the Taliban's Counter Narcotics Directorate, more than 4 million people across Afghanistan are addicted to drugs, with a significant portion of this figure consisting of women, girls, and children. However, in 2022, the group initiated the process of collecting and treating individuals addicted to drugs, a process during which drug-addicted women have fallen victim to sexual abuse and lust-driven abuses by the Taliban.
Zan TV, in a report, interviewed three women in Afghanistan. These women stated that due to their addiction to drugs, they were subjected to sexual abuse and lust-driven abuses by the Taliban in prisons and addiction treatment centers, not only individually but also in groups.
Rubika: "In the middle of the night, it wasn't just one Talib; three or four of them would rape me."
We meet 25-year-old Rubika, who has not only been a victim of the bitter smoke of addiction but also of the Taliban's lust-driven abuses, with a tired and blank gaze in the outskirts of a remote village in Zaranj, the capital of Nimruz province.
She says, with a voice hoarse from drug smoke, coupled with the sorrow and disgrace of notoriety, while holding her two-and-a-half-year-old child in her loving motherly embrace, that she fell victim to addiction in her adolescence due to a lack of guardian. However, after the Taliban collected drug addicts and transferred them to addiction treatment centers or their prisons, she was repeatedly gang-raped by the group's forces.
"I was young when I became addicted with my uncle; my uncle was a drug smuggler. When the Taliban collected us from the roadsides, for a while they didn't do anything. After a few months passed and we regained our health, every night the Taliban would come inside the camp, separate the more attractive girls and women, and gang-rape me many times."
Tears of shame and disgrace prevent Rubika from continuing to speak. She pauses for a moment, then with a deep sigh, she says that four years ago, her uncle forcibly married her off to a man more than 30 years older than her. However, two years ago, because of her addiction, her husband divorced her.
"I had no father; I lived with my uncle and became addicted. But my uncle forced me to marry a man who was thirty years older than me. I have a child from him. My elder child, who was a daughter, passed away. Now, I don’t know what to do with my life," she said.
Rubika says she is faced with difficult and challenging choices between the need to save herself and take care of her child, as she says that after being released from the Taliban's addiction treatment center, she developed severe mental and psychological illnesses.
She compared the Taliban's addiction treatment center to a prison and a dungeon, saying: "Its name was the addiction treatment center, but during the days we wouldn't even get food, and at nights, it wasn't just one Talib; three or four of them would rape me because they said this girl is pretty. The Taliban would take many girls and women outside and rape them."
Faiza: "They didn't just rape me; they tortured me to force me into intercourse."
Thirty-year-old Faiza also says that during eight months, she was subjected to more than 50 instances of sexual assault and torture by the Taliban.
"I spent eight months in the Taliban's addiction treatment center. Every day, under different excuses, the Taliban would take me out of the room where I was with the other women and rape me. They didn't just rape me; they tortured me to force me into intercourse," she said.
According to Faiza, she is addicted to opium, which she first used to relieve severe headaches, but that relief led to a constant pain and sexual exploitation by the Taliban.
"I had a lot of headaches, an elderly woman told me to put some opium in my tea and drink it; it would relieve my headache. I did it, and my pain eased a little. From that day on, I became addicted to opium, until the Taliban came, collected us from the streets, and took us to their prisons."
Faiza endured many hardships and difficulties in the Taliban's addiction treatment center. She says that the Taliban, in their pursuit of sexual pleasure, forcibly subjected her to abuse. To achieve their goals, they even burned her thighs and back with hot metal rods.
"I was a girl and I had no relationship with anyone, but in the first days when the Taliban came, one of them told me to come into this room because he had something to do. I went, and he told me that I had to do this. I said it's a sin, you are Muslims. He said not to raise my voice. He forced me to do it. I hated myself and the Taliban so much. After that day, he kept repeating it. When I didn't agree, he would burn my back and my thighs with hot metal rods."
Nilofar: "I got caught in two disgraces; one the disgrace of addiction, and the other the disgrace of the Taliban's rape."
Nilofar was arrested by the Taliban from the roadside in 2024 due to her addiction and was taken to one of their addiction treatment centers. She is a 23-year-old girl who became addicted five years ago along with her brother. But now she says the sorrow and burden of two disgraces weigh heavily on her shoulders."What should I say? I got caught in two disgraces, first the disgrace of addiction, and second the disgrace of the Taliban's rape in the addiction treatment center. The Taliban showed no mercy. Whenever they wanted, they would come and force us to sleep with them."
Nilofar, with eyes full of tears, recounts her cries and screams under the hands and feet of the Taliban's misogynistic forces.
"They raped me by force, not just once, but over and over again. I would scream, I would cry, but no one heard my voice. All they cared about was satisfying their own lust. They would force me to take pills so I wouldn't get pregnant. They said if I got pregnant, they would kill me."
It is not only these women who have been sexually abused by the Taliban in addiction treatment centers due to their addiction; a large number of others are also part of this caravan, but because of security concerns and societal shame, they are not willing to speak about the Taliban's mistreatment.
