OutRight Action International and Human Rights Watch said in a report that LGBT Afghans and people who do not conform to rigid gender norms in Afghanistan have faced an increasingly desperate situation and grave threats to their safety and lives under the Taliban, a media release stated.
The 43-page report, "'Even If You Go to the Skies, We'll Find You': LGBT People in Afghanistan After the Taliban Takeover" is based on 60 interviews with LGBT Afghans.
Most interviewees were in Afghanistan, while others had fled to nearby countries. In addition to worrying about these countries' laws against same-sex relations, interviewees outside Afghanistan lacked proper immigration status, so were at risk of being summarily deported.
Afghanistan was a dangerous place for LGBT people well before the Taliban retook full control of the country on Aug. 15, 2021, the release also stated. In 2018, the government of then-President Ashraf Ghani passed a law that explicitly criminalized same-sex sexual relations, and the previous penal code included vague language widely interpreted as making same-sex relations a criminal offense.
However, when the Talibanwho had been in power from 1996 to late 2001regained control of the country, the situation dramatically worsened for LGBT individuals. The Taliban reaffirmed the previous government's criminalization of same-sex relations, and some of its leaders vowed to take a hard line against the rights of LGBT people. A Taliban spokesperson told Reuters in October, "LGBT... That's against our Sharia [Islamic] law."
The full report is at outrightinternational.org/sites/default/files/afghanistan_lgbt0122_web_0.pdf.