What is The Fate of LGBTQ Members Under Taliban Rule?

What are the chances LGBTQ members living peacefully under the Taliban rule? Will they live a double life and show their sexual intentions behind closed doors while pretending something else in public? What are the consequences if they came out in the Islamist community?

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Many scenarios are surrounding the situation of LGBTQ members after the surrender of US forces and the Afghan government’s rapid fall as well as the control of the Taliban who announced to enforce the Islamic rule and the establishment of an Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.

According to media sources, the Taliban Jihadist are already torturing and murdering LGBTQ members. A gay man in Kabul was raped and beaten by the Taliban after they tricked him by offering a way to let him out of the country.

Not only they tortured him, but they also took his family’s number to say that their son is gay.

Artemis Akbary, who is an Afghan LGBTI+ rights activist based in Turkey, believes social media will make it easier than ever for the Taliban to find and kill LGBTQ members in Afghanistan.

LGBT Foundation, which is a national charity delivering services, advice and support for LGBT people in England, reaffirmed support for LGBTQ members living in Afghanistan.

In a statement released on August 27th, the Foundation called “the UK government to treat LGBTQ+ Afghans as a priority demographic in the ongoing evacuation and humanitarian responses, including the opening of humanitarian corridors for evacuation, similar to procedures used by the UK Government in other emergency situations, such as in Uganda or the former Yugoslavia.”

Human rights advocates have shared their concerts on the fate of LGBTQ especially after the Taliban leaders new rules that ban female students from attending mixed gender classes at schools and emphasized on the compulsory of wearing Hijab in public.

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Nevertheless, Taliban fighters are forcibly marrying girls as young as 12-year-old and take them as sex slaves.

The Taliban began to control keynote cities in Afghanistan since the start of US troops withdrawal and it announced full control of Kabul on Sunday August 15th.