In two months, Parwana estimates she has crossed the threshold of her home perhaps four times. She used to leave early in the morning, for work that supported her entire family, and then go on to an evening degree course.
After the Taliban took over Kandahar, her manager told her not to come to work and her university hasn’t yet sorted out how to put on the gender-divided classes they demanded.
Many people have welcomed the calm that settled over the city after the war abruptly ended, but for Parwana, as a single young woman, streets patrolled by Taliban soldiers are filled with menace. “Now I’m scared to go out. I wasn’t before.”
“I thought I was somebody, I could do something for my family and help others. Now I can’t even support myself,” she said. “Women here feel like everything is finished for them.”
The Taliban leadership, eager for international recognition and funds, has for years been courting the world with promises that the group has fundamentally shifted its positions on women’s rights.
