Women’s Movement in Exile: Torture of Afghan Women Continues from Taliban Prisons to Exile

Sent to Zan TV

On June 26, coinciding with the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, the Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile issued a statement calling on the international community to pay attention to the situation of Afghan women who are victims of torture, both inside Afghanistan and in exile.

The statement says that torture for Afghan women is a “present reality” and not merely a memory of the past. According to the movement, women in Taliban prisons face the worst forms of psychological, physical, and sexual violence. They say women are arrested, flogged, humiliated, or even killed merely for their knowledge, desire for freedom, or civic activism.

However, the Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile stressed that the suffering of Afghan women is not limited to inside the country, but continues in another form in host countries. One part of the statement reads: “Today, we are also victims of another form of torture in exile; ruthless deportations, detention in camps, statelessness, constant fear of case rejection, uncertainty, discrimination, and humiliation.”

The movement emphasized that Afghan women at borders, in immigration offices, camps, and aid distribution lines face “injustice, helplessness, and voicelessness” on a daily basis.

Another part of the statement reads: “Torture is not only solitary confinement; the Afghan woman is tortured in her own home, in escape, at the border, in the silence of the world.”

These women have called on the countries involved in the Afghan crisis to take responsibility for supporting victims of torture, especially women. They also called for reopening the files related to crimes against humanity committed against women, particularly after the fall of the republic.

By commemorating this day, the Afghanistan Women’s Movement in Exile declared that the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture is not merely a date, but a cry of pain from millions of tortured women and people, both in their homeland and in exile.

The statement ends with: “Torture, wherever and in whatever form, must end.”