Taliban security personnel stand guard ahead of a public flogging of 27 women and men at a football stadium in Charikar city of Parwan province on December 8, 2022 in front of a large crowd.
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We have previously reported on the Taliban’s position that public flogging (as well as stoning) are appropriate corporal punishment if they believe a citizen has violated certain precepts –- enabling girls to be educated despite the ban on secondary education for females, for example, or engaging in an adulterous relationship. Have Taliban authorities been employing these methods?
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In March 2024, NPR reported on a statement issued by the Taliban’s usually elusive supreme leader Hibatullah Akhundzada announcing a return to a type of punishment in its justice system. “We will flog the women … we will stone them to death in public [for crimes],” he said in an audio message.
True to his words, the Taliban have gradually increased public and violent punishments. A report by the Afghanistan Human Rights and Democracy Organization (AHRDO), an nongovernmental organization that investigates human rights violations, 2,745 individuals who had been subjected to corporal punishment between February and April. The numbers were drawn from the Taliban’s own public records.
The U.N. has documented similar figures, in a report in March 2026. Citing at least 1,110 flogging cases last year, the U.N. states: “in 2025 alone, more men and women were subjected to public flogging than in all previous years combined.”
These counts are based on cases published by the Taliban’s Supreme Court on their website and social media channels and in over 500 press releases. Advocates believe that there may be cases that are not documented in court records — instances when Taliban authorities confront and flog the accused on the spot, such as women violating the Taliban’s strict dress code.
MA is an activist in Afghanistan who shared a video with NPR that shows the public flogging of a woman, reportedly in Kandahar province. She asked to be identified only by her initials, fearing repercussions from the Taliban for calling attention to flogging.
MA also pointed to several similar videos on social media. The Taliban bans filming in public areas where flogging as well as stoning takes place, but MA says that individuals who oppose the practice have been discretely filming these events, then posting the video.
NPR was not able to independently verify the content of the videos. A request for comment from the Taliban was not answered.
“A very important element of how they see justice”
Why has the Taliban embraced flogging?
“The floggings are an important aspect of administration of justice in the Taliban’s eyes,” says Shaharzad Akbar, executive director of the Afghan human rights group Rawadari. “It’s a very important element of how they see justice, the rule of law and how they use it to control and repress the population,” says Akhar, who is based in Europe.
Samira Hamidi, South Asia regional campaigner at Amnesty International, says she agrees. “The increased use of public floggings and other corporal punishments serves not only as a form of punishment but also as a tool of intimidation and social control.”
Beyond the brutality of these punishments, legal experts say they violate the country’s commitment to international law.
“Afghanistan is a party to several human rights instruments, and even after the Taliban took over, it has remained a member of these international human rights treaties, which therefore carry obligations on the government to protect these rights for all individuals in Afghanistan,” explains Haydee Dijkstal, a U.K.-based lawyer specializing in international human rights who provided legal analysis for the AHRDO report. These treaties include the Convention against Torture, the Convention on Civil and Political Rights, and the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination.
“These obligations prohibit treatment that amounts to cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or torture,” she says.
“When something is called a punishment but itself constitutes a human rights violation, it cannot be considered a lawful punishment or justice,” she says.
Who gets flogged? Women and marginalized groups
The AHRDO report noted that women and marginalized groups such as Afghanistan’s LGBT community remain most disproportionately impacted by the rise in such punishments.
One reason, the report notes, is that the Taliban officials are flogging individuals based on discriminatory and illegal charges. The crimes of the accused, such as women appearing in public without a mahram (a male guardian), same-sex relations, extramarital relations or women “running away” from homes, are protected fundamental human rights under international law.
“Women face a heightened risk because they are subject to a range of discriminatory restrictions that regulate their movement, dress, behaviour, and participation in public life,” Hamidi says.
Since taking over, the Taliban have issued dozens of decrees that prohibit women from higher education, most forms of employment and political and even public participation.
“In this context, corporal punishment becomes another mechanism for enforcing gender-based discrimination and maintaining the Taliban’s systematic repression of women and girls,” she adds.
The Taliban commitment to these punishments is part of its dismantling of the Afghan legal system since taking power.
“The rise of corporal punishment aligns with that lack of an independent and impartial judiciary in Afghanistan and is a way of imposing fear and control over the population,” Dijkstal says.
“The cases lacked due process and violated the right to a fair trial,” she says, adding that in cases documented by AHRDO, not one person was allowed proper legal representation or allowed to present a defense or even speak in court. “It was a gross violation of what is considered under international law to be a minimum standard to be considered a fair trial.”
At the same time, women have been shut out of the justice system, says Akbar. Since taking power in 2021, the Taliban has dismissed approximately 270 women judges as well as roughly 1,500 women registered as lawyers with the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association. Today, there are no women judges, prosecutors or officially registered female lawyers in the country.
“So for women, when they are accused of something, there’s no way that they can pursue a defense. It’s much harder to negotiate a way out of that punishment, because they simply can’t,” she says.
In one case documented by AHRDO, identified as PF003, the victim was detained from the public bazaar for wearing a long coat instead of the burqa. “They were settling the bill with the shopkeeper when several Taliban members entered the shop and questioned the shopkeeper about why he had allowed an “unveiled” woman into his premises,” the report noted. The woman was arrested and beaten, causing a bleeding head wound, and then sentenced to 15 lashes.
“This is not a system meant to serve the population,” Akbar says. “It’s not meant to keep anyone safe. It’s certainly not meant to keep women and children safe. In fact, it exposes women and children to more violence and abuse and trauma,” she added.
In several case studies documented by AHRDO, women who approached the Taliban courts to complain about domestic abuse, violence and even rape were arrested and charged with moral crimes and sentenced to public lashing.
In one case, documented as PF006, the report noted that the victim, who had an intellectual disability, was detained by the Taliban in her garden and taken to a security checkpoint where she was raped. These details were provided when AHRDO interviewed a family member.
When the family tried to register a complaint against the Taliban member, the authorities instead imprisoned the victim and sentenced her on a charge of “having a relationship outside of marriage.”
She was convicted and sentenced to twenty lashes and two months’ imprisonment, during which she suffered life-threatening injuries, as her family shared with AHRDO.
Flogging in public has many consequences
The public nature of these punishments is also a reason for concern among activists. Several victims interviewed for the AHRDO report talked of the social ostracization that followed the sentencing.
“In cases of women being whipped or jailed, there’s additional damage to her reputation which, in a place like Afghanistan, impacts her ability to reintegrate into her family and community,” Akbar points out, noting that many women victims have struggled to find medical help for injuries suffered during the floggings.
“They are completely isolated and stigmatized as well, in addition to having experienced that trauma,” she says.
Akbar worried about the impact of these public punishments on another group: the spectators. “I wonder about the people who are invited to watch these; what does it say about someone who would line up to see another human being beaten up?” she says.
Hamidi raises similar concerns. “It normalizes violence, fosters fear and self-censorship, and weakens trust in justice systems and public institutions,” she says.
The psychological impact on the population, not just the survivors but also the community, “the people watching,” is worrisome.
“The Taliban will not last forever,” Akbar says, “but what if we can’t break out of this chain of trauma, anger and resentment they are inculcating within the communities.
Ruchi Kumar is a journalist who reports on conflict, politics, development and culture in India and Afghanistan. She posts on X as @RuchiKumar
