Whatever Happened to the Taliban Threat: ‘We Will Flog the Women’?

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, cites 2,745 individuals who had been subjected to corporal punishment between February 2022 and April 2026. 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. {snip}

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.

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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