In August, the Taliban published “vice and virtue” laws that banned women’s voices being heard in public. Weeks later, more than 130 women travelled to Tirana in Albania to attend the All Afghan Women summit to talk about the Taliban’s human rights abuses.
The Guardian reporter Annie Kelly spoke to Afghan women at the conference about how their lives had changed since the Taliban took control.
“I think it’s quite difficult to really get your head around just how much the Taliban have changed the lives of half of the population of Afghanistan since they took control three years ago,” Annie tells Michael Safi. “Coming from a position where Afghan women had been encouraged for years to go to school, to seek employment, to find jobs in the police and the judiciary.
“Within weeks of taking power, the Taliban had prevented all girls over the age of 11 from attending secondary school. They closed universities for women. Since then, they have prevented women from taking on almost every form of paid employment. They have prevented women from walking in public parks. They have shut any communal space for women, including beauty salons. They have introduced stoning and public executions for women for crimes such as adultery.”
Photograph: Jutta Benzenberg/The Guardian
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