U.N. Investigator Assails Taliban Over Abuse of Women

The U.N. human rights investigator Sunday harshly criticized Afghanistan’s Taliban religious army for the widespread, systematic and officially sanctioned abuse of women.

Accusing the Taliban’s Ministry of Vice and Virtue of deep discrimination against women, Radhika Coomaraswamy, the U.N. special investigator into violence against women, called for international pressure to force its dissolution.

“The Ministry of Vice and Virtue is the most misogynist department in the whole world,” Coomaraswamy told reporters.

The ministry has banned women from working and attending school. It also forces them to wear the all-encompassing burka apparel.

Ministry employees, armed with rifles, patrol the streets of Kabul, Afghanistan’s capital, looking for women violating these and other edicts.

Violators are publicly beaten, usually “with what looks like a leather cricket bat,” Coomaraswamy said.