RASC News Agency: Local sources in western Kabul have confirmed a harrowing incident that took place on the evening of Monday, May 19, highlighting yet another episode in the Taliban’s ongoing war against women in Afghanistan. According to eyewitness accounts, two young women were targeted for sexual assault by armed Taliban militants stationed at a security checkpoint in the 12 Imam Township, situated in Police District 18. While the women were returning home, Taliban fighters attempted to forcibly drag them into their outpost a brazen act that was only thwarted by the courageous intervention of local residents. The confrontation allowed the young women to escape, though the psychological trauma remains. However, in a grim reflection of Taliban-style retribution, the militants detained the brother of one of the victims, identified as Zabih. He was brutally beaten in custody, and sources familiar with the matter report that his condition is now critical. His family, terrified and powerless, has not been informed of his whereabouts or whether he is receiving medical care another chilling example of the Taliban’s lawless, vengeful governance.
This incident is not an isolated occurrence. It is emblematic of a much broader and systematic pattern of violence, intimidation, and degradation that the Taliban have unleashed against women and girls across the country. Despite their performative rhetoric about adhering to Islamic values, the group continues to enforce a militarized misogyny that deprives women not only of their rights, but of their very humanity. In recent months, the Taliban have dramatically escalated their restrictions on women’s freedom of movement and public presence. Armed units particularly those under the so-called Ministry for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice roam the streets of Kabul as morality police, harassing women for alleged offenses ranging from improper hijab to simply walking alone. These encounters often result in arbitrary detention, verbal abuse, and physical violence. By enforcing the mandatory wearing of the burqa, the Taliban seek to make women invisible erasing them from public life, silencing their voices, and denying their agency.
What is unfolding in Afghanistan under Taliban rule is not merely a series of isolated human rights abuses it is a deliberate, institutionalized campaign of gender apartheid. Women are being systematically excluded from education, employment, civil society, and political participation. Those who dare to resist through peaceful protest or by simply attempting to live normal lives are arrested, tortured, or disappeared. Many women remain in Taliban detention facilities, denied access to legal representation, family contact, or fair judicial process. The international community has repeatedly condemned these actions. Human rights organizations, including the United Nations and Amnesty International, have documented the Taliban’s violations in extensive detail. Yet, the group continues to act with impunity, emboldened by the absence of meaningful global consequences and by the silence or worse, normalization of their regime by some actors on the world stage.
Afghanistani women now stand on the front lines of one of the most egregious human rights crises of our time. They are fighting not just for their own dignity, but for the soul of a nation crushed under the weight of armed authoritarianism. Their bravery, resilience, and resistance in the face of Taliban terror must not be met with apathy or diplomatic equivocation. It is incumbent upon the global community to move beyond statements of concern and to adopt concrete measures political, legal, and humanitarian to hold the Taliban accountable. The Taliban’s attempt to consolidate political power through the subjugation of women is not governance; it is tyranny. It is the weaponization of religion to justify gender-based violence. And it is the moral responsibility of the world to confront it with unwavering clarity and resolve.
As history has shown, no regime rooted in fear, misogyny, and injustice can withstand the tide of awareness, resistance, and the unyielding pursuit of justice. The international community must not avert its eyes. It must stand in solidarity with the women of Afghanistan and confront the Taliban’s crimes with the full force of international law and moral conviction.
