Women live in fear

Taliban threaten former policewomen

Symbolic image

(Bild: APA/AFP/WAKIL KOHSAR)

Since the Islamist Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, former policewomen have been living in constant fear and threat. This is what the human rights organization Human Rights Watch writes in a report. 

According to the report, women described how they received threatening phone calls or how Islamists violently searched their homes. The women interviewed also reported increasing violence in their families because relatives were against their work as policewomen.

Many ex-policewomen fled abroad
According to Human Rights Watch, there are only a few areas under the Taliban where female police officers are still deployed, for example at checkpoints or in women's prisons. Many of the former female officers have fled to other parts of the country or neighboring countries. Only a small number have been taken in by Western countries, which promoted and financed the recruitment and training of Afghan policewomen after 2002.

NGO: Women were "betrayed in two ways"
However, Human Rights Watch also reports systematic sexual violence against female police officers during the previous, Western-backed government. "Afghan policewomen were betrayed in two ways, first by the former Afghan government, which allowed serious sexual abuse against them to continue unchecked, and then by countries that ignored this abuse and were unwilling to relocate or grant asylum to women seeking protection," said Fereshta Abbasi, Afghanistan researcher at Human Rights Watch.