Five years after the Taliban swept back into power in Afghanistan, life is still getting worse for women and girls, who can barely leave their homes.
The regime has now issued about 200 decrees restricting freedom for the female population, including prohibiting girls over 12 from attending school, barring women from university and nearly all forms of employment and forbidding them from leaving the house without being completely covered and accompanied by a male guardian.
One of the Taliban’s latest decrees permits men to beat their wives, provided they do not break any bones or leave visible, lasting wounds. Another makes it far harder for a woman to leave a marriage, while preserving men’s right to divorce, and implicitly permits child marriage.
Half of Afghan women now leave home only once or twice a month because of the severe restrictions on their movement and access to public spaces, according to UN Women.
“As a woman, we can’t easily go out to buy something for ourselves and bring it back,” Prima, 23, told The i Paper. “For example, shopping for groceries, whatever we need, that responsibility falls on our husbands. He is the one who has to go and get things for the house.”
