Afghanistan - Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women - Death Penalty - May 2025
Country: Afghanistan
Partners: World Coalition Against the Death Penalty
Issues: Death Penalty, Women's Rights
Mechanism: UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women
Report Type: Stakeholder Report
This report addresses Afghanistan’s compliance with human rights obligations under the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women, especially with regard to the death penalty.
Since the Committee’s last review of Afghanistan in 2020, the Taliban usurped the former government and established itself as the de facto government. As such, many of the Committee’s 2020 recommendations are of limited relevance to the present situation. This report focuses on those recommendations that are still relevant to Afghanistan’s circumstances today.
Since the Taliban takeover in August 2021, the Taliban de facto government has imposed a series of regressive and gender-discriminatory policies, edicts, and laws; allowed extrajudicial killings; and adjudicated cases informally to the detriment of women. Women in Afghanistan experience gender discrimination and gender-based violence.
Because of the continued internal conflict in Afghanistan, there is limited official data
regarding the number of women currently sentenced to death. For the same reason, there is
only limited information regarding detention conditions of women sentenced to death.
Between August 2021 and June 2022, Taliban de facto authorities carried out extrajudicial
executions of at least five women for adultery. Without specifying gender, the Taliban de
facto Deputy Chief Justice announced that Taliban de facto courts issued 175 death
sentences and 37 sentences of stoning to death between August 2021 and May 2023. UN
experts note that “women are more likely to be sentenced to death by stoning.”
