Divorced Afghan women forced back to abusive ex-husbands

• Marwa was abused for years by her ex-husband.
• Marwa was one of a small number of women granted legal separation in Afghanistan.
• Several women have reported being dragged back into abusive marriages.

Marwa, who was abused for years by her ex-husband, who broke all of her teeth, has gone into hiding with her eight children after Taliban commanders ripped up her divorce.

Marwa was one of a small number of women granted legal separation in Afghanistan under the previous US-backed government, where women have few rights and domestic abuse is common.

When Taliban forces took power in 2021, her husband claimed he was forced to divorce, and commanders ordered her back into his clutches.

“My daughters and I cried a lot that day,” Marwa, 40, told AFP, her name changed for her own safety.

“I said to myself, ‘Oh God, the devil has returned.'”

The Taliban government follows an austere interpretation of Islam and has imposed severe restrictions on women’s lives that have been labelled as “gender-based apartheid” by the United Nations.

Several women have reported being dragged back into abusive marriages after Taliban commanders annulled their divorces, according to lawyers.

Marwa was locked away in the house for months, her hands broken and fingers cracked, as she endured a new round of beatings.

“There were days when I was unconscious, and my daughters would feed me,” she said.

“He used to pull my hair so hard that I became partly bald. He beat me so much that all my teeth are broken.”

She gathered the courage to flee, fleeing hundreds of kilometres (miles) to a relative’s house with her six daughters and two sons, all of whom have assumed fictitious names.

“My children say, ‘Mother, it’s okay if we are starving. At least we have got rid of the abuse,”Marwa said as she sat on the cracked floor of her bare house, clutching a string of prayer beads.

“Nobody knows us here, not even our neighbours,” she explained, fearing her husband would find out.

‘Islam permits divorce’

According to the UN mission in Afghanistan, nine out of ten women will face physical, sexual, or psychological violence from their partner.

Divorce, on the other hand, is frequently more taboo than abuse itself, and the culture remains unforgiving of women who divorce their husbands.

Divorce rates were steadily rising in some cities under the previous US-backed government, where small gains in women’s rights were largely limited to education and employment.

Women used to blame their fate for whatever happened to them, according to Nazifa, a lawyer who handled around 100 divorce cases for abused women but is no longer allowed to work in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

As women became more aware, they realised it was possible to divorce abusive husbands.

“When there is no harmony left in a husband and wife relationship, even Islam permits a divorce,” explained Nazifa, who only wanted to give her first name.

Special family courts with female judges and lawyers were established under the deposed regime to hear such cases, but Taliban authorities have made their new justice system all-male.

According to Nazifa, five of her former clients are in the same situation as Marwa.

Another lawyer, who did not want to be identified, told AFP she recently witnessed a court case in which a woman was fighting to be reunited with her ex-husband forcibly.

Another lawyer, who did not want to be identified, told AFP she recently witnessed a court case in which a woman was fighting to be reunited with her ex-husband forcibly.

She went on to say that divorces are only permitted under the Taliban government if the husband is a drug addict or has fled the country.

“But in cases of domestic violence or when a husband does not agree to a divorce, then the court is not granting them,” she said.

The Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the Human Rights Commission have both been abolished, as has a nationwide network of shelters and services that once supported women.

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