Taliban is zealously protecting an entrenched Afghan culture of violence and abuse against women. By giving themselves a cloak of holiness they assume they have achieved a station above criticism. Article below is from 2016 based on many years of work.
mantraya.org
"Violence against women and girls is related to their lack of power and control, as well as to the social norms that prescribe men and women’s roles in society and condone abuse. These factors reinforce women’s low status in society.
One horrific story propelled me to research this article. Several months ago in an area east of Jalalabad, Afghanistan, a 15-year old girl died after her sister-in-law threw her into a tandoori oven. In yet another gruesome account in Afghanistan, a pregnant woman in her twenties had part of her genitals cut off. Her mother-in-law and sister–in–law helped her husband tie her up and beat her with a wooden stick. She miscarried.
... In Afghan society, patriarchy is created by men while guarded by women.
Afghanistan, India, Central Asia as well as many other male-dominated cultures that share the same structures to which women adhere, makes them think and act like men in terms of power and control. When the mother-in-law was a victim she justifies her position of perpetrating such violence toward her daughter-in-law. “Thus, the women help in continuing the patriarchal system once they come to occupy positions of power in household or politics,” says Dr Shanthie D’Souza, president and founder of Mantraya, an independent web-based research forum. “Moreover, they continue with such measures to gain some amount of respect in their society where power is measured through control and subjugation among peers and men.”
On my first trip to Kabul in 2007, I became aware of Sippi Azarbaijani-Moghaddam’s legendary reputation as one of the foremost experts on Afghanistan. I met her shortly after and her insights and advice remain amongst the best. As a gender expert,
she has worked in the country for over twenty years and doesn’t mince her words when it comes to explanations:
“power, powerlessness, lack of education, no rule of law, socialization into violence, acting out what has been done to them as children, shame, shame and more shame. With shame on top so victims and perpetrators are stuck in a bond of silence.”
“Women are the most ‘stuck’ in the cultural systems,” says Azerbaijani-Mogaddam. “Older women are rewarded by men for maintaining the cultural system so they punish transgressors. There is also jealousy when younger women come into the household and get more attention from men, and during war, violence at all levels of society escalates.
Everyone, given the chance, is violent to everyone – hitting, sodomy, rape, sexual abuse, verbal abuse. It is a hierarchical society where many social norms have been broken down by war. Men are also stuck in the system and feel trapped to do anything but what is expected of them to maintain ‘face’.”