♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> NARRATOR: In Afghanistan, the Taliban's crackdown on women... >> None of these stories are getting out.

The Taliban beat anyone caught filming something they don't like.

>> NARRATOR: Undercover, correspondent Ramita Navai finds those who have been punished by the regime... >> We covered some cases of women who were imprisoned.

They were being held without charge.

>> NARRATOR: And the defiant voices fighting back... >> These women say they're risking their lives just by being here.

>> NARRATOR: Now on "Frontline"-- "Afghanistan Undercover."

♪ ♪ >> This program contains graphic content some viewers may find disturbing.

Viewer discretion is advised.

♪ ♪ >> RAMITA NAVAI: As the Taliban took power in Afghanistan last year, I began working undercover there.

The Taliban were promising to respect women's rights.

But we started gathering evidence... (prison door clanking) ...of women jailed by the Taliban without trial and held in secret.

(speaking Dari) >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: Of girls abducted from their homes and forcibly married.

(speaking Dari) >> NURIA: >> NAVAI: Of women living in hiding... (woman speaking, weeping) ...and in fear of their lives.

♪ ♪ With those speaking out risking imprisonment.

>> ARIFA (in Dari): ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: This is the Afghanistan the Taliban don't want the world to see.

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: I arrived in the country a few months after the Taliban seized power.

There was already widespread fear among women.

And signs that the Taliban were using their extreme interpretation of Islamic law to crack down on them.

I traveled to the west of Afghanistan, where I had heard accounts that young women were disappearing.

Their families didn't know what had happened to them.

(man chanting on speaker) (car horns honking) In Herat city center, Taliban fighters were patrolling the streets.

♪ ♪ The day before, they'd shot dead a doctor who failed to stop at a checkpoint.

We keep hearing that Taliban intelligence is really strong here in Herat and that there are informants everywhere, so while everything seems normal, when you talk to people here, there's a real atmosphere of fear and mistrust.

(car horns honking) I was put in touch with the family of a woman who'd gone missing.

Her brother met me on a side street and took me to meet the family.

We agreed to call his sister Maryam and conceal her identity.

♪ ♪ Maryam had disappeared three weeks earlier.

Her mother showed me pictures of her, graduating just before the Taliban takeover.

Her dream was to become a film director.

>> MARYAM'S MOTHER: >> NAVAI: >> MARYAM'S MOTHER: >> NAVAI: They've packed all her things away and they just...

Her mother broke down crying, and she's going through her things now.

>> (crying) ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: While we were in Herat, we heard of several other families with similar stories.

We contacted a group of female lawyers who had been investigating the Taliban's treatment of women in the city.

They said they'd been hearing from their sources that the Estekhbaarat, the Taliban intelligence service, was jailing women without trial for "moral crimes" such as traveling without a male relative.

The Taliban had banned the lawyers from working and were watching them.

But they agreed to meet us in secret.

>> WOMAN (in Dari): >> NAVAI: These women say they're risking their lives just by being here, but they've come because they think it's important the world knows what's happening to women and girls in Herat.

♪ ♪ Maryam's family eventually receive news of her.

(women speaking Dari) She was alive.

She was being held in Herat's central prison.

The family received a letter from their daughter that was smuggled out of prison.

Her sister read it out to us.

>> DIMA: >> NAVAI: Maryam said that some friends had been arrested for riding in a taxi without a male relative.

She and one of the friend's fathers went to find them, then she, too, was arrested for traveling without a male relative.

>> DIMA: ♪ ♪ (car horns honking) >> NAVAI: Maryam's family said they tried to see her in the prison, but were turned away and told there was no record of her there.

Without mentioning her name, we approached the prison ourselves to see if we could get inside and find out what was going on.

♪ ♪ A few days later, the Taliban sent their answer.

We've been told we can film in the men's section.

And when we're there, we're going to see if we can get permission to film in the women's section.

♪ ♪ The new Taliban prison chief, Mullah Mohammad Nabi Khalil, was waiting.

He wanted to show us he was treating his prisoners well.

>> (speaking Pashto): >> NAVAI: Our tour of the men's wing began.

(people talking in background) He said there were around 700 male prisoners, mostly charged with theft or murder.

>> NABI KHALIL: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: Eventually, the prison chief agreed to take us to the women's section, where, he told us, over 90 women were being held.

♪ ♪ We're about to enter the women's prison, and he's already told me that we can't interview any of the prisoners on camera.

I'm going to see if I can chat to them.

Using a hidden camera, I started to film.

Around 40 women were huddled in a courtyard.

♪ ♪ (speaking Dari): >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI and WOMAN: >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: >> WOMAN 2: >> WOMAN 1: >> WOMAN 3: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: Then I spotted a young woman I recognized from the photographs her mother had shown me.

It was Maryam.

How are you doing?

I spoke in English so the guards wouldn't understand.

Why have you been taken?

>> (in English): 21 days.

>> NAVAI: And what for?

What crime?

>> They don't let us to speak to journalists, they... Big punches, okay?

So, just say to the whole world they don't let us talk.

>> NAVAI: Okay.

>> So I'm... >> NAVAI: A female prison guard told Maryam to stop speaking English.

After the reprimand, she started praising the Taliban.

>> (in Dari): >> NAVAI: Uh-huh.

Okay.

>> NAVAI: Great to speak to you.

>> Thank you so much.

♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: Maryam and the other women I spoke to in the prison had all told me similar stories and had confirmed what I had been hearing in my reporting: that the Taliban were jailing women without trial for everything from leaving their husbands to traveling unaccompanied.

♪ ♪ As soon as I saw her, I recognized her from the photo that the family have shown me.

Everyone I spoke to told me they'd been imprisoned for immorality since the Taliban took power.

Maryam's family would continue their efforts to get her home.

♪ ♪ (car horns honking in distance) In Afghanistan's capital, we continued our reporting.

♪ ♪ We found an underground network of young women running secret safehouses.

They were helping other women and their families escape the Taliban.

>> REEM: >> NAVAI: Around this time, hundreds of people the Taliban accused of being linked to the previous government were being detained or even murdered-- including female police officers, lawyers, and journalists.

The women in the network were themselves on the run from the Taliban.

While I was with them, they were checking on families they were helping.

>> SIDRA: >> MAN (on speakerphone): I'm not feeling safe.

>> NAVAI: The women told me that many of the families they work with want to leave Afghanistan.

>> MAN (on speakerphone): ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: The women let me join them as they rush to meet a new family who just fled from a northern province.

They fled the Taliban and they're on their way to Kabul now.

They don't know anyone here, they've got no money, and they need help.

They headed to the outskirts of the city.

To make sure they weren't followed, they changed taxis several times.

♪ ♪ They met the family in a room near a bus station.

Aysha, her husband, and four children had traveled 15 hours.

They'd abandoned their possessions and had nowhere else to go.

>> AYSHA (crying): ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: They were taken to a safehouse.

♪ ♪ (child talking softly) Aysha had been a radio journalist, and although the Taliban had pledged there'd be a free press, she said that in her town, they'd been threatening and harassing local journalists.

She went into hiding, and the week before she fled, the Taliban had stepped up their search for her and other journalists.

>> AYSHA: >> NAVAI: She showed us pictures of her brother that she said were taken after the Taliban tortured him, trying to get him to say where she was.

>> AYSHA: >> NAVAI: >> AYSHA: (car horns honking) (birds chirping) >> NAVAI: Despite the Taliban's crackdown, some women in the capital were openly challenging the regime.

We came across a demonstration, which I filmed with a hidden camera.

(car horn honking) (people talking in background) >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: One of the Taliban's first actions was to close the Ministry of Women's Affairs, describing it as "having no function."

These women had worked there and were demanding their jobs back.

>> WOMAN: (shouting, car horn honking) (whistling) (car horns honking) >> NAVAI: My colleague Karim Shah filmed from the fringes of the protest.

But agents from the Taliban intelligence service arrived, taking his camera, and threatening to arrest him.

>> MAN: >> NAVAI: The protesters scattered and we drove off before we could be detained.

(man chanting over speaker) We've been in touch with quite a few women protesters here in Kabul, but the same thing keeps happening-- we arrange to meet them, and they pull out because the Taliban get to them, see them at protests, and the threats start.

But there's one women's group who continue to meet, and they're allowing us to join them at a secret meeting tomorrow.

♪ ♪ >> (speaking Dari) >> NAVAI: In the past few months, this group had organized many protests, demanding that the Taliban keep its promise to allow girls to attend school.

They were the first women we met willing to show their faces on camera.

Before the Taliban took over, Lena was a lawyer.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: Wahida was a librarian.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: Arifa had been about to open a restaurant.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: The group was meeting to decide whether to continue with the street protests.

Just that week, the Taliban had been warning women to stop protesting or face arrest.

>> ARIFA: >> WOMAN: >> ARIFA: ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: In Herat, there were developments with Maryam.

Using their connections, her family had been negotiating for her release.

While we were with them, there was a breakthrough.

(man speaking Afghan language) Her mother is just standing at the house gates waiting for her daughter.

♪ ♪ >> (wailing loudly) >> NAVAI: Finally, Maryam and her mother were reunited.

Her friends had also been released and were with her.

She told us that when she was detained, a Taliban officer took her phone.

>> MARYAM (in Dari): >> NAVAI: The other girls said they were tasered and beaten, too.

>> WOMAN: >> NAVAI and WOMAN: >> WOMAN: >> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: They said other prisoners told them they'd also been jailed without any investigation or trial.

>> WOMAN: >> NAVAI: Maryam and her friends said while in prison, Taliban officers made them an offer.

>> WOMAN: >> MARYAM: ♪ ♪ (siren blaring in distance) >> NAVAI: Just as we were leaving, one of the women took me aside and told me they are now marked women.

That the families are blaming them for dishonoring the community and that nobody will marry them.

She also says that none of those women can leave their homes, not just because they're scared of the Taliban, but because they're scared of their neighbors.

They've gone from one prison to another.

(children cheering) ♪ ♪ We drove north to Badakhshan province, through the Salang Tunnel and the Hindu Kush mountains.

We were hearing allegations that Taliban fighters were forcing young girls into marriage there, despite the regime publicly proclaiming that the practice was forbidden.

(man speaking Afghan language) ♪ ♪ Faizabad was one of the last northern cities to fall to the Taliban in 2021.

Fighters who'd once been holed up in the mountains now controlled the streets.

While we were in Faizabad, we obtained this video.

Taliban fighters have tied a man to a tree and are beating him with rifle butts.

(men shouting) I found someone who was there who told me the victim had witnessed a Taliban commander abducting a girl for marriage.

We're hearing so many stories of Talibs forcefully taking girls and women as brides.

And it's not just the foot soldiers doing this.

So far, we've heard of cases involving a police chief, some top commanders, and even an official working in the governor's office.

>> MAN (in Dari): >> NAVAI: A wealthy businessman met with us secretly.

He said a few weeks earlier, his 19-year-old cousin had been forced to marry a powerful Taliban commander 40 years older than her.

>> MAN: >> NAVAI: The Taliban commander, he said, had arrived at the girl's home with some of his men and demanded her father's consent.

>> MAN: (talking softly in background) >> NAVAI: Those who have witnessed such forced marriages and abductions say they follow a pattern.

>> MAN (in Dari): >> NAVAI: This man agreed to talk to us if we concealed his identity.

He himself had a confrontation with a group of Taliban who were taking a girl for forced marriage.

>> MAN: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: What's striking about being in the countryside is that we're hearing so many stories of abuse at the hands of the Taliban, but none of these stories are getting out-- the area's remote, journalists have fled, and the Taliban beat anyone caught filming something they don't like.

♪ ♪ Under the Taliban, around half of Afghanistan's media outlets have closed.

But in Faizabad, Radio Sada-e-Banowan, the Voice of Women, was still on air.

(man speaking Dari) >> NAVAI: The station was founded and run by women, but now only men were in the studio.

>> MAN: >> AHMADI: >> NAVAI: The first caller into the program was a journalist from the radio station itself, asking the Taliban information chief when she'd be allowed back to work.

>> WOMAN: >> AHMADI: (man speaking Dari) >> AHMADI: (talking in background) ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: Later, when the station was off air, we returned to meet its founder and head, Najia Soroush.

(door unlocking) Hello.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: The Taliban had banned Najia from the office when men were present, citing Islamic law.

She said they'd been pressuring her to resign, and that she had been receiving anonymous death threats.

(speaking Dari): >> (in Dari): >> NAVAI: The Taliban had told her women could no longer host phone-in shows, in case they "inflamed the passions of male callers."

>> (in Dari): >> NAVAI: A few days later, Najia would flee Faizabad.

♪ ♪ (kids calling) ♪ ♪ After being released from prison in Herat, Maryam had contacted the underground women's network in Kabul.

We filmed as they met Maryam outside the airport.

Her brother and younger sister had come, too.

The guys have just arrived at the emergency safehouse.

They're going to stay here for the next few days until they find them a more permanent safehouse to live in, and they're going to now debrief them.

>> NAVAI (in Dari): >> MARYAM: >> NAVAI: >> MARYAM: (people talking in background) >> NAVAI: In Maryam's safehouse, there was another woman on the run with her daughter and grandchild.

She'd been a major in the Afghan army before the Taliban took power.

Now, she said, they were searching for her and other former military officers.

While we were with her, her brother sent footage of his arrest and torture by the Taliban.

♪ ♪ >> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: Mm-hmm.

♪ ♪ Winter was taking hold, making it harder to travel.

We decided to leave and return in the spring-- to find out what had happened to some of the women we'd met and to put what we'd found to the Taliban.

Back in the capital, the Taliban agreed to an interview at a new government ministry.

So this used to be the Ministry of Women's Affairs.

Now it's the Ministry of Vice and Virtue.

When we were here last, three months ago, all these blast walls were covered with beautiful murals depicting women and slogans about women's rights.

And now the only thing on them are these posters telling women how to dress.

Hundreds of women used to work here.

On my visit, I was the only woman in sight.

♪ ♪ (knocks) The spokesperson for the Ministry of Vice and Virtue is Akif Muhajir.

(speaking Dari): >> NAVAI and MUHAJIR: >> MAN: >> MAN 2: Please cover your hair, thanks.

>> NAVAI and MUHAJIR: >> NAVAI: Why did Vice and Virtue take over the Ministry of Women's Affairs?

>> MUHAJIR (in Pashto): >> NAVAI: Why are you concentrating on women?

Because I noticed when I walked into the building, there were posters telling women how they should dress.

I haven't seen any for men.

>> MUHAJIR (in Pashto): >> NAVAI: Should the responsibility not be on men to behave properly here?

Why should the responsibility be on women?

>> MUHAJIR (in Pashto): Okay.

(speaking Dari) >> NAVAI: I asked him about the accounts we'd uncovered of women being arrested for so-called crimes of immorality.

>> MUHAJIR (in Pashto): >> NAVAI: The ministry would soon issue new restrictions on women, including one ordering them to cover their faces in public.

We returned to Herat, where we'd seen the women in prison.

The situation for women here was increasingly dire.

♪ ♪ At Herat Regional Hospital, I met Dr. Shahnaz Pirouz.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI: Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

>> PIROUZ: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: The patient was named Hiba.

She was being treated for burns after setting herself on fire.

>> PIROUZ: (Hiba speaking softly) >> PIROUZ: (Hiba speaking softly) >> PIROUZ: >> NAVAI: The Taliban had closed shelters that once helped women in violent marriages, like Hiba.

Hers was the second self-immolation case in the ward in just two weeks.

>> PIROUZ: >> NAVAI: Hiba died a month later.

Many other suicide cases are treated in the main hospital wing.

This gentleman saw that we were filming and he approached us to say that his daughter had attempted suicide.

He's taking us to meet her.

(knocking) (baby crying in background) (speaking Dari): >> FATHER: >> NAVAI: Nuria had drunk bleach and was in constant pain.

(speaking Dari) >> NURIA: >> NAVAI: Nuria's mother said she knew of several other girls in their village who'd recently tried to kill themselves.

>> MOTHER: >> NAVAI and MOTHER: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: Off-camera, the hospital administration said that while they are seeing suicide cases, the numbers have gone down under the Taliban.

But several doctors who were too frightened to speak openly told us hospital records were inaccurate.

One doctor agreed to an interview if we concealed her identity and her voice.

>> WOMAN (in Dari): >> NAVAI: >> WOMAN: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: In the burn unit, Dr. Pirouz and her colleague Dr. Mehri had spent the day operating on patients.

For now, despite the Taliban's crackdown, they are allowed to work alongside men because the country is short of surgeons.

>> (speaking Dari): (machinery beeping) >> (speaking Dari): ♪ ♪ >> ARIFA (in Dari): >> NAVAI: When I'd last met Arifa, she'd been organizing protests demanding schools reopen for girls.

Two of her colleagues, who I'd also met, had since been arrested and jailed by the Taliban.

Wahida and Lina had been forced to make false public confessions, saying that they had been paid by foreign governments.

>> (speaking Dari): >> NAVAI (in Dari): >> ARIFA: (talking in background) >> NAVAI: At a safehouse in the city, I found Maryam again.

She was still in hiding, hoping to find a way to get out of Afghanistan.

(speaking Dari): >> MARYAM: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: I'm waiting to see Bilal Karimi.

He's the deputy government spokesperson, and I want to put some of the allegations we've been hearing to him.

(people talking in background) (knocking) >> NAVAI and KARIMI: >> KARIMI: >> KARIMI and MAN: >> KARIMI: >> MAN and KARIMI: >> NAVAI: We covered some cases of women who were arrested and imprisoned for immorality, and their cases were not officially registered.

They were being held without charge.

>> KARIMI: >> NAVAI: I've spoken to young women who told me that when they were arrested, Taliban officers used tasers to electrocute them.

>> KARIMI: >> NAVAI: I've also spoken to former female prisoners who said that some prisoners were told if they married Talibs, they would be released.

Will you investigate that?

>> KARIMI: >> NAVAI: I've spoken to some families who've told me that Talibs are forcefully marrying women and girls.

Why is this happening?

>> KARIMI: ♪ ♪ >> NAVAI: International Women's Day.

The Taliban had set up extra checkpoints across Kabul.

Arifa and her group told me they hoped to stage a demonstration.

They're having problems leaving their homes.

One of them left a voice message to tell me that there were two Talibs right on her street.

Because the Talibs do not want women protesting today.

♪ ♪ In the end, the women decided to avoid the streets, but they still wanted to get their message out.

>> ARIFA (in Dari): >> NAVAI: >> ARIFA: (voice trembles) >> NAVAI: Arifa had brought with her a work by the poet Mohammad Sharif Saeedi, written for the women of Afghanistan.

>> ARIFA: (applause) ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> Go to pbs.org/frontline to read more about the treatment of women under the Taliban.

>> Should the responsibility not be on men to behave properly here?

Why should the responsibility be on women?

>> And to explore all of our reporting on Afghanistan.

Visit the complete "Frontline" archive, where you can stream more than 300 documentaries.

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♪ ♪