‘Her face was beaten in’: how Taliban rule ushered in a new era of women being killed

In a voice message recorded weeks before she died, Liza Shams, 33, asks a relative to pray for her. “There’s no end to my days of misfortune,” she says. “Pray that God shames Hasib [her husband, Hasibullah Sarwari] in front of the whole world for what he has done to me.” In a second recording, she describes being beaten by Sarwari while pregnant, then kept isolated for days, injured to the point she couldn’t eat or speak. “I’m a woman, fine, I should not talk about what happens in my home,” she says. “But I can’t do this any more.”

On the afternoon of 1 February, Liza’s neighbours heard screaming and alerted the police. A short while earlier, Liza’s father, Shamsuddin Shams, had received a video call from his daughter. Her injuries were shocking: “Her jaw was broken and she could hardly talk,” he says, but she had managed to pass the message that her husband had beaten her again. Shamsuddin immediately called his two other daughters who lived close by, who arrived at the house and took her to Rahmat hospital in Kabul. About an hour after arrival, Liza died.