KABUL, AFGHANISTAN – A 26-year-old woman has died by suicide in eastern Nangarhar province, with Taliban authorities attributing the incident to domestic violence.
Sayed Tayeb Hamad, spokesperson for the Taliban police in Nangarhar, said the woman took her own life by hanging in Surkhrod district on Monday, September 15. He added that an investigation has been opened to uncover more details about the incident.
The case follows several similar incidents in northern Faryab province in recent days. The latest occurred on Saturday in Khwaja Sabz Posh district, where a young woman was killed by her brother after resisting a forced marriage. In Dawlatabad district, a woman was murdered by her husband, who then fled with his sister-in-law, while in Shirin Tagab district, another woman was killed in circumstances that remain under investigation.
Afghanistan has long faced high levels of domestic violence, but rights groups say the situation has worsened since the Taliban returned to power in 2021. Severe restrictions on women and girls, lack of legal protections, and deepening poverty have contributed to the surge in abuse.
The Taliban has shut down all women’s protection centres set up under the previous government and dismantled institutions that provided legal and social support, leaving women without access to safety or justice.
Between January 2022 and June 2024, Afghan Witness, a project monitoring human rights in the country, recorded at least 840 cases of violence against women and girls. Of those, 332 were fatal.
