How the Taliban is rolling back the freedoms of the past 20 years

Supreme leader has now announced that all women must cover their faces in public

A burqa-clad woman
A woman waits outside a United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) office to receive non-food items in Kandahar, southern Afghanistan, on 8 March
(Image credit: Javed Tanveer/AFP via Getty Images)

In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s retrograde and “inhumane” assault on women’s rights is gathering pace, said Hasht-e Subh Daily (Kabul). Women have already been forced out of most workplaces since the Islamist group returned to power in August. They can no longer travel on planes or by taxi without a male escort; in March, the Taliban reversed a pledge to reopen secondary schools for girls.

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