🖊Mahjuba Nowrozi BBC Persian

Five years after the Taliban government returned to power, women who once worked as judges and lawyers within Afghanistan’s judicial system are no longer sitting behind desks in court. But in their homes, women still come to them for consultation and to seek justice; women who say their access to justice has become harder.

Majgan—an alias for a 35-year-old woman—is one of them.

She says she went to court to escape a marriage that is against her will, but in the end she was forced to return to living with her husband.

Majgan says she now wants to separate from her husband, but her husband opposes divorce and the Taliban government’s court has sent her back to her husband’s home.

According to the woman, her husband has “abandoned her with no fate” and does not pay her maintenance.

Unable to hold back her tears, she cries out with a voice mixed with pain and helplessness, saying: “Women are tortured, they are threatened, but still they tell women to go… If you are threatened, you are tortured, or they kill you, it is your husband.”

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