Restrictions on women’s rights have expanded in Afghanistan since U.S. forces withdrew from the country five years ago, ceding control to the Taliban in the process. Afghan women are banned from attending schools and gyms, books written by women are removed from libraries, doctors and nurses are unable to practice, and child marriage rates have increased. Wives have been rendered legally subordinate to their husbands, and women are required to stay silent in public. “Women and girls of Afghanistan are suffering the most darkest situation in the world,” says Negina Yari, an Afghan women’s rights activist living in exile in Germany, who discusses the impacts of what some advocacy groups are characterizing as “gender apartheid,” as well as the effects of regional diplomatic normalization on the Taliban’s political influence.
