KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – Local sources in Kunar province, eastern Afghanistan, reported that a man has shot and killed his wife amidst a growing wave of domestic violence across the country.
The incident occurred in Chapa Dara district on Monday morning, where a man named Ataullah fatally shot his wife before fleeing the scene, sources said.
The motive for the killing remains unknown, and local Taliban officials have not yet commented on the incident.
Even before the Taliban’s return to power, Afghanistan had one of the highest rates of violence against women, with nine out of ten women experiencing at least one form of intimate partner violence in their lifetime.
Since the Taliban’s return to power, the situation has worsened significantly as women have been systematically excluded from public life and denied their fundamental rights through a series of extreme policies.
Between January 2022 and June 2024, Afghan Witness, a project of the Center for Information Resilience, documented 700 incidents of violence targeting 840 women and girls. These included femicide, physical abuse, sexual assault, torture, enforced disappearances, and other violent acts against women and girls.
The Taliban has also dismantled the legal and institutional structures that once offered protection for women, leaving them vulnerable to violence and without access to justice.
