RASC News Agency: A shocking case of abduction and gang rape in a refugee camp in Pakistan has once again laid bare the plight of Afghanistani women driven into exile by the Taliban’s repressive rule. According to Pakistani police, a 21-year-old Afghanistani woman was seized and sexually assaulted by five men in the Haripur refugee camp, located in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province. The victim, whose husband is abroad, had been walking to Camp No. 16 to visit relatives when she was dragged away by the assailants. Police reports state that the men forcibly took her to a nearby farm where she was held hostage for more than two hours, subjected to threats, beatings, and eventually a brutal gang rape.
The perpetrators identified as Pacha, Nadi, Rozi Khan, Javed, and Nasir, all Afghanistani nationals have been arrested and charged under Section 375 of Pakistan’s Penal Code. A preliminary medical examination at Haripur Trauma Center confirmed the assault, with forensic evidence expected to be presented in court once investigations are complete. What should have been a sanctuary for displaced families has become instead a terrain of insecurity, where women live under constant threat. The Haripur camp, like dozens of others across Pakistan, shelters thousands of Afghanistani families uprooted by decades of war and the Taliban’s suffocating social policies. Yet, in the absence of adequate oversight, these camps have become breeding grounds for sexual violence, exploitation, and systemic neglect.
Human rights defenders and women’s organizations have reacted with outrage, calling this case emblematic of the broader failures in refugee protection. “Camps must be safe havens for those fleeing persecution not spaces where women endure yet more violence,” said one activist, urging both Pakistani authorities and international agencies to act swiftly. Calls are mounting for independent monitoring bodies, stronger security mechanisms, and dedicated psychological and legal support for survivors of sexual violence.
Behind this tragedy lies the darker shadow of the Taliban’s regime. Since seizing power in 2021, the Taliban’s draconian policies banning women from education, employment, and public life have systematically destroyed livelihoods and driven tens of thousands into forced displacement. For many Afghanistani women, the choice has been between suffocating repression at home or dangerous uncertainty abroad.
This latest case of violence in exile underscores how Taliban oppression follows women even beyond Afghanistan’s borders. Forced into unsafe camps, stripped of state protection, and silenced by fear, women carry the weight of the Taliban’s misogynistic policies across borders, where they often face new cycles of exploitation and abuse.
Activists stress that unless Pakistan, the United Nations, and international humanitarian organizations coordinate to provide urgent reforms tightening camp security, ensuring accountability for perpetrators, and extending meaningful protection to women such incidents will not only recur but intensify.
The gang rape in Haripur is not an isolated crime; it is part of a wider humanitarian catastrophe in which Afghanistani women remain the primary victims. Their suffering is both the result of Taliban-imposed gender apartheid at home and the failure of international structures abroad to guarantee even the most basic safety.
Unless immediate measures are taken, Afghanistani refugee camps will remain graveyards of promises spaces where justice is delayed, protection is absent, and women continue to pay the price for the Taliban’s cruelty and the world’s neglect.
