An Afghan woman, who suffered brutal torture by the Taliban, said Monday that the Islamist militant group feeds women’s bodies to animals, treating them as “flesh to be battered.”
“It’s tough for the world to imagine what we built in the past 20 years. We built dreams. Now they are gone. It’s all over for us. Women who work with the government or police were being hunted and threatened even before the Taliban had taken over the country,” Khatera told India’s News 18. “Now, the concern has gone beyond letting women work. At this point, I am scared if they would leave these women alive. They don’t just kill women. They make animals feed on their bodies. They are a blot on Islam.”
“They [Taliban] first torture us [women] and then discard our bodies to show as a specimen of punishment. Sometimes our bodies are fed to dogs. I was lucky I survived it,” she said. “One has to live in Afghanistan under the Taliban to even imagine what hell has befallen on women, children and minorities here.”
“In the eyes of the Taliban, women are not living, breathing human beings, but merely some meat and flesh to be battered.”
Three Taliban insurgent fighters shot 33-year-old Khatera eight times in the upper body as she returned home from work, then gouged her eyes out of their sockets with a knife after she had lost consciousness in October 2020, according to India’s News 18. The victim, a former police personnel, was two months pregnant at the time of the attack.
Khatera’s father, a former Taliban fighter, allegedly conspired in the attack after he had learned that his daughter worked, according to the outlet.
“They don’t just kill women. They make animals feed on their bodies. They are a blot on Islam,” Khatera told @ahona_sengupta https://t.co/ip9xNTIHWk
— Rohini Chatterji (@RohiniChatterji) August 16, 2021
After the Taliban’s Sunday breach of Kabul, the force promised to appoint women for governmental roles but intended to ban women from receiving an education past the age of 12 and from employment, the outlet reported. (RELATED: Taliban Reportedly Kills Woman Not Wearing Burqa After Promising To Respect Women’s Rights)
Under previous Taliban rule, women were required to wear a burqa to cover their face, be escorted by a male relative outside of their homes, and were not permitted to receive an education. They were banned from watching television or listening to music, according to The Associated Press.
Khatera’s relatives informed her that many families have burned women’s educational certificates “to protect them from the Taliban,” she told the outlet.
Since the attack, Khatera lives with her husband and toddler in Delhi, where she continues to undergo treatment, India 18 reported. The 33-year-old mother said that women die at the hands of the Taliban for disobeying their rules and from being denied basic medical care.
“The Taliban don’t allow women to visit male doctors, and at the same time, don’t let women study and work. So, then what is left for a woman? Left to die? Even if you think we are just reproductive machines, there is not common sense but pure hate. How does a woman deliver her child according to the dictum of these men with guns without medical care?” she said.
“Not a single person who has survived the Taliban would believe this in any way. Besides, Afghanistan is not just Kabul. The rural parts will be destroyed. The scale of ‘zulm’ (oppression) and cruelty that will descend on women, you will never be able to imagine.”
Zarifa Ghafari, Afghanistan’s first female mayor, said Sunday that she is waiting for the Taliban to kill her.
“I’m sitting here waiting for them to come,” she said. “There is no one to help me or my family. I’m just sitting here with them and my husband. And they will come for people like me and kill me.”