The severe humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, where almost half the population needs aid, has pushed many families into survival mode. Hunger, unemployment and crumbling services have tightened dependency within Afghan families.
Additionally, sweeping restrictions imposed by the Taliban rulers since their return to power in 2021 have limited women’s options in public life, limiting access to work, education, and mobility.
Together, these pressures make violence against women in the private sector harder to avoid, more difficult to report, and easier to conceal.
Forced marriage and dependency
Women’s rights advocates and local journalists describe a pattern: economic desperation promotes forced and early marriage, increases women’s dependence on husbands or in-laws, and domestic abuse is less visible.
When protection mechanisms fail – or when families see no viable path through the courts – violence can escalate to deadly consequences.
A case from Afghanistan’s Western Ghor province shows how these dynamics can come together. Farzana was 18 years old when she died in Pasband district of Ghor.
A local source told DW that he was attacked inside the house. A doctor said the forensic examination showed clear signs of beating and torture, suggesting she had been murdered. Farzana was married to a 50-year-old man who already had two wives.
Local government employee Amir Mohammadi (name changed) told DW that the man’s two sons were accused of involvement in his murder.
Mohammadi said he contacted Farzana’s relatives, who refused to cooperate, saying they were a poor family and the killer suspects were rich people. For them, social imbalance matters as much as crime.
“Many girls like Farzana are victims of poverty, forced marriage and child marriage,” she told DW. She said families often marry their daughters to older men with money in the hope of stability, but this can result in long-term exploitation behind closed doors.
Journalists say that even when violence is known, it is rarely recorded in the public record. A local journalist in Afghanistan, speaking on condition of anonymity, told DW that reporting has become increasingly limited.
“The Taliban has strictly banned journalists and media and no one dares to report on these matters,” he said.
Justice stalled because of fear and power
Social pressure adds another layer: families often avoid filing complaints due to fear, stigma or retaliation. The investigation may stop even if a complaint is made.
A Taliban official in Ghor, speaking anonymously because he was not authorized to speak to the media, told DW that a father and two sons accused of murdering a young woman have been arrested and are being interrogated.
Yet the local journalist said he had received information indicating that suspects in similar cases were later released through the mediation of tribal elders. Such mediation, which often involves financial settlements and the “consent” of victim families, reflects the continuing strength of informal justice systems, particularly in remote areas.
Legal code weakens women’s protection
For rights groups, the legal framework under the Taliban is a central issue.
Afghan human rights organization Rawdari raised serious concerns after a criminal process document signed by Taliban leader Habtollah Akhundzada was distributed to provincial courts across Afghanistan.
Rawdari described the contents of the document as “deeply worrying” and “clearly contradictory to international human rights standards and the basic principles of a fair trial”.
According to rights group Analysis In the Code of Criminal Procedure for the courts, “Article 32 states that only if the husband beats the woman with a stick and the act results in serious injury such as ‘wound or bodily injury’, and the woman can prove it before the judge, the husband will be sentenced to 15 days’ imprisonment.”
Rawdari said the code does not explicitly prohibit physical, psychological or other forms of sexual violence.
Official denial, growing global concern
Taliban officials reject the notion that violence is tolerated. Abdul Hai Jam, the head of the Taliban’s information and culture department in Ghor, told DW that authorities had not been informed and had no details about the cases reported in Pasband.
He said the “Islamic Emirate” addresses women’s complaints and punishes perpetrators through the courts “in accordance with the law”, while warning that some people go to the media and “create problems.”
Zaim also emphasizes that killing is prohibited under Islamic law.
The gap between official claims and reality is wide and the humanitarian crisis is deepening it.
International observers have drawn on the extensive Taliban system of sanctions as a structural driver of vulnerability.
A 2025 report The United Nations Special Rapporteur on Afghanistan has described the Taliban regime as creating “an institutionalized system of discrimination” against women and girls.
It says women and girls have been “effectively erased from public life” and denied fundamental rights such as education, work and movement.
a first UN experts statement “Warned of many preventable deaths that could amount to femicide.”
Now the question is of scale.
“When two women are murdered within a few days in a small district, what will be the annual number of femicide cases across the country,” a local journalist told DW on condition of anonymity.
In today’s Afghanistan, that question remains difficult to answer, not because violence is rare, but because much of it remains hidden.
Edited by: Keith Walker