Love Crimes of Kabul

The women in Kabul’s Badum Bagh jail serve a prison sentence for ‘moral offences’, including having sex before marriage, running away from home and committing adultery. This documentary follows three young women in their struggle with Islamic law.

Filmmaker Tanaz Eshaghian provides a unique look behind the walls of the women’s prison in the Afghan capital, where most inmates await their trial. One of them proudly admits to having killed her immoral husband. Most women are not in prison because of acts of violence or theft, however, but for violating the harsh rules of life that Muslims have to follow. The detained women speak frankly about law and order, injustice and why they were arrested, yet the people outside the prison walls have already judged them as being outcasts. ‘If they were good women, they would not be here,’ says a male prison guard.