1 week ago ‘It kept our spirits alive’: Taliban’s internet blackout leaves girls in despair

Many Afghan women and girls can no longer communicate or study online after the internet is cut off in 12 provincesLast week, 17-year-old Marjaneh* sat at her computer, waiting for her nightly online English lessons to begin. At 7pm, the scheduled start time, her laptop screen stayed black. The family’s wifi, like the wireless internet across her neighbourhood, had gone and with it, her only chance to continue her education.“These online classes were my only source of hope,” says Marjaneh, speaking from Afghanistan through a crackling phone connection. “I thought, when they [Taliban] closed schools at least they wouldn’t cut the internet, but now that has been taken away too.” Continue reading...

Society

1 week ago British couple held in Afghanistan call their release by Taliban ‘a mystery’

After almost two decades living in Afghanistan and running education programmes for women and girls, Peter and Barbie Reynolds were arrested by the Taliban and spent more than seven months in prison. Finally free, they reveal how they were chained up in grim conditions and feared they would die – either from ill health or at the hands of their captors. Arpan Rai reports

Politics

1 week ago ‘Send your daughters or you get no aid’: the Taliban are making religious schools girls’ only option

Food handouts and employment are increasingly tied to Afghan families’ agreement to strict Islamic educationWhen the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021, Nahid, 24, was midway through an economics degree. She had hoped to work in a university after she graduated.Instead, Nahid now spends her mornings at a religious school in the basement of a mosque in the western city of Herat, sitting on the floor and reciting scripture with 50 other women and girls, all dressed in black from head to toe. Continue reading...

Politics

2 w. ago Can’t work, sing, travel, study: All the ways the Taliban are restricting lives of women in Afghanistan

Afghan women cannot be heard in public, even if it is to offer prayers, and have been banned from schools, workplaces, salons, gyms and national parks under the current Taliban rule. Arpan Rai reports

Politics

3 w. ago ‘I was lost but football gave me strength’: Afghan women refugees on their fight for recognition

Exiles from the Taliban in England and Australia are using the sport to battle prejudice and give a voice to women and girls in Afghanistan“I felt quite lost,” says the goalkeeper Elaha Safdari. “I didn’t know anyone, but little by little football gave me the strength and power to start again, to start from zero, to build, to keep going and to keep pushing myself forward.”It is four years since a 17-year-old Safdari arrived in England, part of the Afghanistan women’s development team evacuated first to Pakistan then to the UK after the US withdrawal of troops and the concession of power to the Taliban. Continue reading...

Sport

3 w. ago Afghan women left under earthquake rubble by rescuers because of 'no touch' Taliban rule

Just over a week after a deadly earthquake in Afghanistan, hundreds of women remain trapped under the rubble as rescuers 'refuse to touch them' due to the Taliban's rule

Events

3 w. ago Nigel Farage confirms he would send women asylum seekers back to Taliban in Afghanistan

It comes after confusion over the Reform UK leader’s position on the issue

Events