Marwa has fled into hiding with her eight children after Taliban leaders tore up her divorce. Marwa had been abused by her ex-husband for years and had all of her teeth broken.
Marwa was one of the few women in Afghanistan, where domestic violence is pervasive and women have almost no legal protections, who were given a formal separation under the previous US-backed government.
Her spouse claimed he had been forced into the divorce when Taliban forces overthrew the government in 2021, and commanders ordered her back into his custody.
“My daughters and I cried a lot that day,” Marwa, 40, whose name has been changed for her own protection, told AFP.
“I said to myself, ‘Oh God, the devil has returned’.”
The United Nations referred to the Taliban government’s severe restrictions on women’s lives as “gender-based apartheid” and they adhere to a rigid interpretation of Islam.
Following the Taliban leaders’ annulment of their divorces, several women reportedly reported being forced back into abusive marriages, according to lawyers speaking to AFP.
Marwa was locked away in the home for months while enduring a fresh round of beatings that left her hands and fingers broken.
“There were days when I was unconscious, and my daughters would feed me,” she said.
“He used to pull my hair so hard that I became partly bald. He beat me so much that all my teeth have broken.”
Gathering the strength to leave, she fled hundreds of kilometres (miles) to a relative’s house with her six daughters and two sons, who have all assumed fictitious names.
“My children say, ‘Mother, it’s okay if we are starving. At least we have got rid of the abuse’,” said Marwa, sitting on the cracked floor of her bare home, clasping a string of prayer beads.
“Nobody knows us here, not even our neighbours,” she said, fearing her husband would discover her.
