Afghanistan: Girl Power

More than a decade after the Taliban were driven from power in Afghanistan, the plight of the country's women remains dire, with threats and attacks by insurgents on women leaders, schoolgirls, and girls' schools, and harassment of women for "moral crimes" such as running away from forced marriages or domestic violence. Despite the best efforts of the international community and some of the more 'enlightened' elements of the current Afghan government, the kind of aggressive ultra-misogyny that marked the Taliban years (when religious police forced all women off the streets of Kabul, and ordered people to blacken their windows so that women would not be visible from the outside) is still evident in parts of the country.