The UN mission in Afghanistan documented at least 443 arbitrary arrests and detentions by Taliban morality police during July–September. Its quarterly findings include punishment over dress, beards, hairstyles, prayer attendance and music. Women were also denied access to healthcare and markets without male guardians, extending the restrictions into everyday services.
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, UNAMA, documented at least 443 arbitrary arrests and detentions by the morality police of the Taliban government during July–September. Its human rights update, published on Thursday, also documented 97 incidents of ill-treatment involving women and men. The findings cover cases documented through the mission’s monitoring, rather than an exhaustive count throughout Afghanistan.[1], [2]
The stated grounds for detentions included women’s dress, men’s trimmed beards or supposedly Western hairstyles, failure to attend congregational prayers and playing or listening to music. In Afghanistan’s Paktika province, two barbers were held for a month in August over beard trimming and haircuts. In Rodat district of Nangarhar province, about 100 shops were suspended because shopkeepers had not attended congregational prayers.[1]
More than 50 documented incidents concerned women arrested, detained or cautioned over dress rules, mostly in Herat in western Afghanistan. A 13-year-old girl was held overnight before her father collected her. In Herat on 10 July, 10 women were detained for not wearing chadors and released after guardians and local representatives gave assurances of future compliance.[1]
UNAMA also documented women being denied access to healthcare and markets without a mahram, a male guardian. Two women were prevented from entering a health facility in Afghanistan’s Parwan province on 8 August. In the southern province of Helmand, a woman was denied entry to a market on 17 August because she was unaccompanied.[1]
