Confined to the Shadows
Taliban outlaw coeducation in Afghanistan
When the Taliban last took Kabul in 1996, women were immediately confined to the peripheries of society. The Taliban's extreme interpretation of Islam severely curtailed women's rights to work and education.
Martin Adler - a journalist tragically killed in Somalia in 2006 - travelled to Afghanistan in 1996 to report on life for women under the new Taliban regime. 'Since the Taliban arrived in Kabul, women have been denied the right to work. Women that infringe that law are punished', says one analyst. 'I had three women in my office and they've all left ... I've talked to them, they cried for several days and they're very depressed', says one aid worker who was forced to fire his female employees.
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