“We are back where we started,” said Naheed Samadi Bahram, U.S. country director of Women for Afghan Women, a rights-advocacy group. “It’s very heartbreaking, and very hard.”Two months after the Taliban takeover of their country , Afghan women and girls inhabit a world transformed. The role of Afghan women was vastly elevated, she said — but in allocating aid and jobs, outsiders also trampled at times on the sensibilities of women reluctant to adopt certain Western mores. The magazine’s motto — aimed not just at an urban sisterhood, but readers out in the provinces as well — was “For women, by women.” Roshanian, 27, cried as she described the day it all changed. A month before the capital fell, as the Taliban made swift inroads, the young publisher wrote an open letter to Vice President Kamala Harris, appealing for assistance on behalf of Afghan women.

Source: Los Angeles Times November 07, 2021 22:30 UTC