The Taliban’s new penal code institutionalises violence against women

The Taliban has passed a new penal code reinforcing the institutional oppression of women and political dissidents.

According to the code, signed off the 7^{th of} January 2026 by the Taliban leader Hibatullah Akhundzada, only husbands found guilty of beating their wives with “obscene force” will be sentenced. Even when convicted, domestic violence carries a maximum sentence of 15 days.

Women who choose to stay at their birth-family’s home without permission from their husbands risk up to 3 months imprisonment, denying them the opportunity to seek refuge from abusive relationships. Women who choose to leave Islam are threatened with life imprisonment and corporal punishment.

The code also calls for the incarceration of critics of the regime and by categorising Afghan society into 4 social classes, it allocates different punishments to Afghans based on their social status,

Some sources claim that the new regulation even legitimises slavery in Afghanistan, as the Pastho term “ghulam”, translated as slave into English, is used across different sections of the code.

Yet, a humanitarian worker in Afghanistan writing in The Diplomat under the pseudonym of Paul Brown claims  that the term “ghulam” is not a direct translation of slave, rather it means servant, and is used in the code to refer to the people subject to discretionary punishment.

According to Brown, the document, instead of defining new offences, gives the courts unlimited power to determine how lawbreakers should be punished due to the absence of institutional checks, disproportionately affecting women.

 The code has been framed by experts as a direct infringement of the legal Islamic principles of equality, justice and human dignity, as well as a systematic violation of international law. Nevertheless, the Feminist Majority Foundation has noted the “muted response” of the international community.

Since the Taliban took control of the Afghan government in August 2021 following the retreat of NATO troops, Afghan women have been erased from public life, banned from education, work, politics and healthcare. Amnesty International has gone as far as defining the structural oppression of Afghan women as a “gender-apartheid”.

Despite initially condemning the Taliban for their violations of international law, the international community has started to normalise relations with the Taliban government by reappointing ambassadors to Kabul and engaging in talks with them.

The Supreme Council of National Resistance for the Salvation of Afghanistan has called on member states of international organisation to apply “maximum pressure on the Taliban” and to “refrain from a political or diplomatic engagement with this extremist group”.