KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local sources in Helmand province, southern Afghanistan, reported that a man beat his wife to death because of her poor cooking skills.
The incident occurred on Monday night, January 6, in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. The identities of both the man and the woman remain undisclosed.
A source at Boost Hospital confirmed the incident to KabulNow, explaining that the woman was admitted to the hospital but succumbed to her injuries hours later.
The local Taliban authorities have not yet commented on the matter.
Domestic violence and gender-based violence have long claimed the lives of women and girls in Afghanistan, with a significant increase over the past three years under Taliban rule.
From January 2022 to June 2024, Afghan Witness, a project of the Center for Information Resilience, documented 700 incidents of violence against 840 women and girls in Afghanistan. These cases included femicide, physical abuse, sexual assault, torture, enforced disappearances, and other forms of violence targeting women and girls.
The Taliban closed all women’s protection centers in Afghanistan, which were established during the previous government to offer refuge to female survivors of domestic violence. Additionally, the regime dismantled the legal and institutional frameworks that once protected women and girls, leaving them trapped in a cycle of violence with no access to justice.
Since the Taliban takeover, suicide rates among women and girls in Afghanistan have sharply increased, with most cases linked to domestic violence and Taliban restrictions.
According to a report by Etilaat Roz, more than 200 women and girls have committed suicide across Afghanistan over the past three years of Taliban rule. The report reveals that in the year 1402 (May 2023 – May 2024), at least 103 women and girls, most of whom were under 20, took their own lives.
