Afghan women and girls who have won freedoms they could not have dreamt of under the last Taliban rule that ended 20 years ago are desperate not to lose them now the Islamist militant movement is back in power.
Taliban leaders have made reassurances in the build-up up to and aftermath of their stunning conquest of Afghanistan that girls and women would have the right to work and education, although they have come with caveats.
When the Taliban first ruled Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001, their strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law - sometimes brutally enforced - dictated that women could not work and girls were not allowed to attend school. On Tuesday, at the Taliban's first press conference since seizing Kabul on Sunday, spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid saidto education, health and employment and that they would be "happy" within the framework of sharia.
"They have to walk the talk. Right now they're not doing that," she told Reuters, referring to assurances that girls would be allowed to attend schools. Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai, who survived being shot in the head by a Pakistani gunman in 2012 after she campaigned for girls' rights to education, said she was"I had the opportunity to talk to a few activists in Afghanistan, including women's rights activists, and they are sharing their concern that they are not sure what their life is going to be like," Yousafzai told BBC Newsnight.
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