Afghan Women

For women in Afghanistan, since the Taliban have taken power, it is a time of anguish and terror. What did they do wrong? They studied, worked and took part in civil society. Despite reassurances from the Taliban, it seems to be the beginning of a new nightmare for Afghan women. With the return of the Taliban, it seems inevitable that the most extremist version of Sharia law (the legal system of Islam) which requires women to be isolated, ignorant and invisible, will be reinstated. When they led Afghanistan in the second half of the 1990s, the Taliban plunged the country into total darkness: women were in fact “erased” from society, forced to wear the burqa and to become sexual slaves. They were prohibited from working and studying, with failure to comply punishable by stoning. The Taliban “are circling the streets, asking all women what ...