Crime & punishment, Taliban adaptation: 15 days’ jail for beating wife, only if there are ‘bruises’

New ‘criminal code’ in Afghanistan also legalises ‘Caste-like slavery’, prescribes flog-at-sight for ‘sinners’ & proposes 3 months’ jail for wife visiting kin without ‘permission’.

Representational | An Afghan woman lights fire to cook food at a makeshift kitchen in Markhor-e-Sufla village, Herat, Afghanistan on 26 October, 2024 | Sayed Hassib/Reuters

New Delhi: The Taliban-run Afghan government has brought in a new criminal code, which carves society into rigid classes where mullahs are above the law and slaves at their mercy.

This legislation greenlights spousal beatings, heresy killings, floggings for women’s wanderlust, and legitimises slavery, referred to as ‘ghulami‘.

The Taliban’s new criminal code hands husbands and slave masters the power to punish women and servants at will.

Husbands can beat their wives, but if they beat them with sticks (causing bruises, the husbands will be jailed for 15 days. Fathers can Fathers can beat 10-year-old sons for skipping prayer, but can’t break bones. Women visiting relatives without their husband’s permission will face three months in jail.

The new code was signed by the supreme leader of Afghanistan, Hibatullah Akhundzada, earlier this month. The legislation spans three sections, 10 chapters, and 119 articles, ditching fair trial basics like lawyers, the right to silence or compensation.

According to Rawadari, a rights organisation in Afghanistan, reported that Article 9 divides Afghan society into four classes, where the top spot is occupied by religious scholars, who are untouchable by the law, while the rest can be sent to prison.

Punishment depends on class 

Under Article 9 of the code, Taliban has created a social hierarchy which decides the punishment, not the offence.

Religious scholars (ulama/mullahs), who commit crimes, receive only advice to avoid any real punishment. The elite (ashraf or aristocrats) may face summons and advice, but nothing more severe. The middle class can be jailed for the same offence. While the lower class faces not just imprisonment but corporal punishment as well.

This hierarchy effectively grants near-total immunity to clerics while other Afghans can be subjected to harsher and violent penalties for the same conduct.

The National Resistance Front (NRF), the opponent of Taliban, compared this structure to India’s historical caste divide, where elites evaded accountability and the underclass faced the full force of discretionary punishment.

Institutionalised slavery & religious persecution 

Article 15 of the code states: “In case of any crime for which a ‘hadd‘ (prescribed punishment) has not been specified, ta’zir (discretionary punishment) is ruled, whether the criminal is free or a slave.”

The code clashes sharply with international human rights norms, relying on “confessions” and “testimony” without independent probes, a framework prone to torture.

Religious minorities face severe curbs as Hanafis are deemed true Muslims and Shias, Ismailis, Sikhs, and Hindus are labeled ‘heretics’ (mubtadeh).

Article 14 permits killing ‘corrupters’ and those who spread ‘false beliefs’, while Article 26, prescribes two years in jail for apostasy (renunciation of religious belief) by Hanafis.

Education of girls under Taliban

In addition to punitive legal codes, Taliban policies have systematically stripped Afghan girls and women of access to education. Since the Taliban regained control in August 2021, girls and women have been barred from secondary school, university and employment.

Taliban authorities have also banned hundreds of books written by women and prohibited the teaching of many subjects that women once studied, further erasing their presence from intellectual and academic spaces.

Afghan women and civil society activists describe the restrictions as gender apartheid—a system of legal and social exclusion that treats women as second-class citizens.

Punishment bypasses court

Dissent is criminalised under Article 19, which bans criticism of Taliban policies like curbs on women’s education. Insulting leaders warrants 20 lashes and six months’ jail. Citizens must report ‘subversives’ or face two years in jail; vague prohibitions target ‘mockery’ of rulings or even ‘dancing’.

Punishments bypass courts entirely: Article 4 allows clerics, morality police, and citizens to flog ‘sinners’ on sight, while ‘unreformable rebels’ (baghi) can be executed outright.

Rawadari warns this code entrenches a hierarchy where mullahs reign supreme, blurring home, street, and torture chamber while eroding justice for the vulnerable.

(Edited by Viny Mishra)