KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local sources in central Daykundi province have accused a Taliban official of raping a young girl in the Khadir district of the province.
Speaking with KabulNow today, the source identified the Taliban official as Nusrat Parsa, an employee of the Taliban Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice in the province and claimed that he raped the young girl on Friday, August 23.
According to sources, the young girl, a resident of Khadir district, was on her way to a local market when the Taliban official stopped her, threatened her, and forcibly took her to a nearby hidden area, where he raped her.
The sources also said that the Taliban official threatened the girl’s family with potential consequences if they spoke out or took any action against him.
Spokespersons for the Taliban governor and the security command in Daykundi have not yet responded to KabulNow’s requests for information about this matter.
Since their return to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, the Taliban have been widely accused of sexual assault of women and girls across Afghanistan.
In a report released earlier this month, Afghan Witness, a research project monitoring human rights in Afghanistan, documented 700 cases of gender-based violence against women, with 422 of these cases allegedly involving Taliban members as perpetrators.
According to the report, at least 75 women were allegedly subjected to sexual assault or rape during this period. The organization also notes that the scale of violence could be much higher, as it is severely underreported.
There have also been numerous reports of sexual assault against women and girls in Taliban prisons.
According to a report by the Afghan media outlet Hasht-e Subh, of the 90 women imprisoned in the northern provinces of Jowzjan, Faryab, and Samangan last year, 16 are alleged to have become pregnant due to repeated rape and were subsequently forced to have abortions at local hospitals.
“The Taliban reportedly ordered these women’s pregnancies terminated during the third and fifth months,” the report said.
“At least four women inmates in Samangan reportedly fell seriously ill as a direct consequence of repeated sexual assaults by Taliban members and were ultimately executed by the Taliban,” it added.
Rights groups and activists have expressed concern over severe human rights violations under Taliban rule, especially against women and girls.
They have urged the group to carry out independent and impartial investigations into rape allegations against its members and to hold perpetrators accountable through fair trials in accordance with international human rights law
