The female-led all-women tours in Afghanistan

It has some of the world's most severe restrictions on women but that isn't stopping all-female tourist groups from visiting to see Afghanistan for themselves.

Despite its "appalling human rights record" and a UK government advisory against all travel to the country, a "growing number" of British women have "swapped cocktails in Ibiza" for a trip to "one of the world's top terror hotspots", said The Sun.

Suffocating restrictions

Forty years of war have "kept tourists away from Afghanistan", said The Associated Press, but after the Taliban returned to power there was a "sharp drop in violence" and this is "increasingly attracting" tourists who are drawn by the "dramatic scenery, millennia of history and a deeply ingrained culture of hospitality".

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But the "suffocating restrictions" on women have "essentially erased them from public life", said The New York Times in December, and tourism officials said then that only a small percentage of foreign visitors are women.

Nevertheless, it's "slowly becoming an unlikely destination for brave travellers looking for a true culture shock", said The Sun, and there are all-women tours, led by female guides like Zoe Stephens, a British guide at Koryo Tours. Working with local female guides, her itineraries combine key attractions with visits to women's centres and cooking and embroidery classes from local women.

The idea behind the women-only tour is that visitors can "learn about the lives of Afghan women in context", said Stephens in The Independent. These tours are closed to male travellers. At this stage, the groups are small, with groups of between three and eight women, but the company hopes to build a network of female guides across Afghanistan.

Morality police

There are still ethical and safety issues. For some would-be visitors, the idea of holidaying in Afghanistan remains "morally abhorrent" because of the government's "treatment of women", said the AP. Girls are banned from education beyond primary level, the government dictates what women can wear in public, where they can go, who they can go with, and only a "very limited" number of professions, such as teaching and carpet weaving, are open to them.

Speaking to The Sun, Stephens said the "morality police", a law-enforcement wing that imposes "modesty" rules, are "the ones you have to watch out for" when you're there. Sometimes they "politely enforce" laws about women's restrictions, so if a woman is in a park, which is not allowed, they "may come up to you and politely ask you to leave".

But "the main thing is modesty, not just in clothing but in behaviour as well," she said. "I wouldn't recommend going around singing and dancing."