The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) says de facto Taliban governing officials have admitted to sending women to prison as a means of protecting them from gender-based violence.
In a report published on December 14, the UN mission said the Taliban has eliminated the country's 23 state protection centers for women because, as some officials said, "women's shelters are a Western concept."
"Some de facto officials stated that in instances where they had safety concerns for a survivor, she would be sent to the women's prison, for her protection, akin to how prisons have been used to accommodate drug addicts and homeless people in Kabul," the report said, noting that women sent to prison as a means of sheltering them have no male relatives to stay with or they would not be safe with males from their families.
Since the Taliban seized power in August 2021 as international troops withdrew from the country, Western officials and activists, along with some inside Afghanistan, have expressed concerns about women's rights under the extreme conservative rule of the Islamist Taliban leadership, which has banned women and teenage girls from education in Afghanistan.
It has also banned them from employment in most sectors and discouraged them from leaving their homes.
The de facto rulers have put down, often violently, protests by Afghan women over their lack of rights. Hundreds of women have been imprisoned after their protests were declared illegal.
SEE ALSO: Facing An Uncertain Future, Afghan Girls Finishing Sixth Grade Leave School In TearsThe UNAMA report said that with regard to gender-based-violence complaints, there was a "lack of clear delineation of responsibilities" among the various de facto institutions on handling cases of women and girls and that "referrals between entities creates a gap in accountability for justice actors and makes it difficult for women and girls to know which entity to approach when they have a gender-based violence complaint."
"The situation is compounded by the handling of gender-based-violence complaints predominantly by male personnel of the de facto law enforcement and justice institutions. Many survivors reportedly prefer seeking redress through traditional dispute-resolution mechanisms because of fear of the de facto authorities," it added.
Women's rights were severely restricted during the Taliban's first stint in power until they were driven from government by a U.S.-led invasion in 2001.
Despite pledges of a less authoritarian rule than in their previous time in power, the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban de facto rulers, who have not been officially recognized as the country's government by the international community, have gone further in some of their restrictions on women, leading to accusations from rights groups and many governments that "gender apartheid" has been installed in the country.
"The confinement of women in prison facilities, outside the enforcement of criminal law, and for the purpose of ensuring their protection from gender-based-violence, would amount to an arbitrary deprivation of liberty," UNAMA said.
"Confining women who are already in a situation of vulnerability in a punitive environment would also likely have a negative impact on their mental and physical health, revictimization and put them at risk of discrimination and stigmatization upon release," it said, adding that the authorities "have an obligation" to protect women and girls from gender-based violence.