Victims' relatives have killed murderers on several occasions, and authorities have bulldozed alleged sodomists under walls, stoned adulterers to death, and amputated the hands of thieves. Religious police have publicly beaten and otherwise humiliated hundreds of women for violating Taliban dress codes, which include wearing the burqa, a one-piece garment that covers the entire body. Soldiers, militiamen, and renegades abduct and rape scores of women each year. The Taliban arbitrarily detain and torture thousands of men, particularly Hazaras and other ethnic minorities. Many have been killed or disappeared.
Prison conditions are inhumane.
The Taliban have made the rural Islamic custom of purdah, under which women are isolated from men who are not relatives and cannot leave home unless escorted by a close male relative, mandatory even in urban areas. The Taliban also ban women from working, thereby curtailing not only income, but also female-based relief services. In 1997, the Taliban largely banned female medical workers from working in Kabul's hospitals and restricted female patients, who must be accompanied by a close male relative to be treated, to a few poorly equipped hospitals. As a result, most women in Kabul have little or no access to health care. In June 1998, the Taliban ordered the closure of more than 100 home schools, as well as vocational centers for widows and other women in Kabul.