Stories from Afghanistan and India
Every morning Marzia Akbari, a 25-year-old psychologist from the western Afghan city of Herat, wakes up, picks up her phone and starts calling women. Most calls go unanswered. Since Herat was put in lockdown two weeks ago, Akbari’s work as […]
Doctors and activists are redoubling their efforts to curb a violent and still pervasive custom that violates women’s rights.
The grief of Talib Jan Mangal is insurmountable. His voice quivers with emotion as the 66-year-old Afghan fields calls from around the world. They are all asking after his 26-year-old daughter Mina, who shot dead in broad daylight in the […]
When catwalk model Reshma Qureshi offers makeup tips, her online tutorials end with the message that an eyeliner or lipstick is just as easy to buy in India as a pot of over-the-counter acid. The point, coming from a woman who was […]
The fifth phase of meetings between Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S.’s special envoy for peace, and Taliban leaders concluded earlier this month. Very little has been revealed about the nature of the proposed deal between the two parties, raising serious concerns […]
Known for having imposed strict laws in the country in the mid-1990s, the Taliban’s possible return in the Afghan power structure makes a lot of women uncomfortable.
The day she was flogged by members of the Taliban, Maryam was making her way to the local bazaar to shop for groceries – her face uncovered. The 32-year-old housewife was born and raised in Afghanistan’s Sancharak district in Sar-i-pul […]
Saina Hamidi, a psychological counsellor in Kabul, Afghanistan, says she was around nine years old when she first heard mention of women who bleed. Her older sister had come across one of their cousins washing bloodied clothes and told their […]
I paid your father the bride price for you, so you have to sleep with me whenever I want,” my husband, Karim, who was several decades older than me, told me when I refused to have sex with him. Perhaps […]
When Taliban fighters entered the cities of Afghanistan after hostilities were put on hold for Eid, some women took photos. A symbol of female resistance, the images quickly went viral