In Afghanistan, under the Taliban-led government, thousands of women face the threat of prosecution for adultery after the regime declared their divorces as invalid, which automatically invalidates their second marriage.
Under the previous government, the women were granted one-sided divorce helping them to escape abusive and drug-addicted husbands. Some of these women remarried to start a new life, but the extreme imposition of Islamic law by the Taliban is making these women vulnerable to imprisonment or other types of violent punishments for the crime of adultery, a report from Washington Post said.
As per the report, since the fall of that government in 2021, power has shifted in favor of divorced husbands, especially those with Taliban ties.
Lawyers told the news agency AFP that several women have reported being dragged back into abusive marriages after Taliban commanders annulled their divorces.
A Taliban official told AFP the authorities would look into such cases where previously divorced women were being forced to return to their ex-husbands.
“If we receive such complaints, we will investigate them according to sharia,” the news agency quoted Inayatullah, spokesman for the Taliban Supreme Court, as saying.
