We will be moderate, the Taliban said after taking over Afghanistan in August. However, countless women in the war-torn country knew otherwise. They had physical, mental and financial remnants of the scars the militant group left with their earlier rule.
The Taliban, who in early September, came up with their new ‘caretaker government’ for Afghanistan, are desperate for international recognition. The promises of a more “moderate” rule have followed – with the Taliban promising to protect the rights of women and minorities in their first press conference after seizing power. However, reports of torture of women, similar to the incidents during their rule from 1996 to 2001, continue to come up. The Taliban have also replaced the country’s women’s ministry with that of its contentious moral police, the Ministry for Propagation of ‘Virtue’ and Prevention of ‘Vice’.
The Ministry has returned after twenty years, and its history is not encouraging. Visuals of morality…