How the Taliban have turned back the clock in Afghanistan

A year after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, schools and jobs are restricted for women, music is banned and morality police are out in full force. But the fighting has stopped.

Christina Goldbaum and David Zucchino

Aug 17, 2022 – 11.03am

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Girls are barred from secondary schools and women from travelling any significant distance without a male relative. Men in government offices are told to grow beards, wear traditional Afghan clothes and prayer caps, and stop work for prayers.

Music is officially banned, and foreign news broadcasts, TV shows and movies have been removed from public airwaves. At checkpoints along the streets, morality police chastise women who are not covered from head to toe in all-concealing burqas and headpieces in public.