Afghanistan’s new penal codes set harsher punishments for mistreating animals than for violence against women, according to the UN’s high commissioner for human rights.
Volker Turk told the Human Rights Council in Geneva that the decree “defines several crimes and punishments that contravene Afghanistan’s international legal obligations”.
The decree, shared in an unofficial English translation by the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN), says that a man who beats his wife enough to cause a visible wound faces 15 days in prison – if she can first prove her case to a judge.
Meanwhile, the punishment for anyone having animals or birds fight is five months in prison.
For a woman who goes and stays at her father’s house without her husband’s permission, the sentence is three months.
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Urging Afghan authorities to rescind the decree, signed by Supreme Leader Hibatullah Akhundzada in January, Mr Turk said: “It provides for the use of corporal punishment for numerous offences, including in the home, legitimising violence against women and children.
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“And it criminalises criticism of the de facto leadership and their policies, in violation of freedom of expression and assembly.”
Mr Turk also said in Geneva: “Women and girls are the present and the future, and the country cannot thrive without them.”
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The penal code also lays out different treatment for the same crime depending on social class, ranging from simple warnings for clerics to corporal punishment for those deemed to be at the lowest rungs of society.
It states that scholars and “high-ranking people” face a warning from a judge, while “average people of society” face imprisonment, and “the lower classes” are subject to physical beatings.
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AAN co-director and senior analyst Kate Clarke said on the watchdog’s website that the penal code has not yet been published in the country’s official gazette, but has been circulated to its courts.
She added on the website that the code appeared to have been leaked by someone in Afghanistan’s government, “prompted perhaps by its casual mention of slaves, the permission it gives to husbands to beat their wives and teachers their pupils, and its class-based discrimination”.
The decree is the first full penal code issued by the Taliban since they took control of Afghanistan in 2021, following Western military withdrawals.
In the years since, authorities have issued various prohibitions, including bans on education for girls beyond primary school.
It comes after Pakistan bombed several Taliban targets in neighbouring Afghanistan overnight, leading the country’s defence minister to declare “open war” between the two countries.
Security sources in Pakistan said air and ground strikes hit Taliban posts, headquarters and ammunition depots, while Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said air strikes hit parts of Kabul, Kandahar and Paktia.
Islamabad has long accused Afghanistan of harbouring militants carrying out attacks inside Pakistan.
The Taliban says Pakistan’s security is an internal problem.
