Videos: Young Afghan women won't easily return to dark ages; defiant as Taliban bring back moral policing ministry

Tribune Web Desk

Chandigarh, September 9

These young Afghan women aren’t the same as their counterparts 20 years ago and they won't silently live the life of dark ages or accept oppression by the Islamist militant group as the Taliban reintroduced a moral policing ministry in Afghanistan that once controlled women's lives.

Taliban announced an all-male government on Tuesday, three weeks after storming to power.

During the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule, girls could not attend school and women were banned from working or studying.

Women had to cover their faces and be accompanied by a male relative in public. Those who broke the rules were sometimes humiliated or beaten by the Taliban's moral police squads.

Since the Taliban seized the capital Kabul on August 15, young Afghan women have staged protests in major cities, demanding their rights after the militants barred many from leaving their homes for work and girls from attending school or university.

Meanwhile, a video has gone viral in which women were locked by Taliban in a bank's basement to stop them from joining protests.

Also other videos on social media—which could not be verified—showed Taliban soldiers beating burqa-clad women with sticks.