Abused for years by her ex-husband who broke all of her teeth, Marwa has retreated into hiding with her eight children after Taliban commanders tore up her divorce.
Marwa was one of a small number of women who, under the previous US-backed government, were granted a legal separation in Afghanistan, where women have next to no rights and domestic abuse is endemic.
When Taliban forces swept into power in 2021, her husband claimed he had been forced into the divorce and commanders ordered her back to his clutches.
"My daughters and I cried a lot that day," Marwa, 40, whose name has been changed for her own protection, told AFP.
"I said to myself, `Oh God, the devil has returned`."
The Taliban government adheres to an austere interpretation of Islam and has imposed severe restrictions on women`s lives that the United Nations called "gender-based apartheid".
Lawyers told AFP that several women have reported being dragged back into abusive marriages after Taliban commanders annulled their divorces.
For months Marwa endured a new round of beatings, locked away in the house, with her hands broken and fingers cracked.
"There were days when I was unconscious, and my daughters would feed me," she said.
"He used to pull my hair so hard that I became partly bald. He beat me so much that all my teeth have broken."
Gathering the strength to leave, she fled hundreds of kilometres (miles) to a relative`s house with her six daughters and two sons, who have all assumed fictitious names.
"My children say, `Mother, it`s okay if we are starving. At least we have got rid of the abuse`," said Marwa, sitting on the cracked floor of her bare home, clasping a string of prayer beads.
"Nobody knows us here, not even our neighbours," she said, fearing her husband would discover her.
-20241117133242.jpg)
-20241118072524.jpg)