Afghan women are all too familiar with the Taliban’s reign of terror. After assuming power just last year, the terrorist group has quickly reinstated some of its harshest policies against women despite promises to remain moderate. In what has been characterised as a crime against humanity, the Taliban have completely erased women from public spaces; the most recent of these violations prohibits women from entering public places such as parks or gyms. Women have already been excluded from secondary education and harassed at the university level-their attire, behaviour and every move policed by the morality police which has replaced the women’s affair ministry. A recent rule forbids women from leaving their homes without a male blood relative present; public floggings, amputations and arbitrary detentions have become much too common. In a development that sets a dangerous precedent for Afghan women, the Taliban ordered its female employees at the Ministry of Finance to send a male family member to replace them regardless of their qualifications. It is evident that the Taliban does not care much for merit, or they wouldn’t have barred women from taking up jobs. Even in places where women are still allowed to work, such as in the primary education and healthcare sector, the Taliban’s restrictions have grown so oppressive that it is impossible to comply. What is even more nefarious is that men and women are being pitted against each other in what increasingly resembles a gender war-boys and men are encouraged to police female family members and punished if the women in their family are seen wearing colourful clothes or worse yet, entirely unaccompanied. Prior to the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul, there were laws and mechanisms that provided women with some level of protection-these have since been eroded. The Afghan Independent Human Rights group has been banned along with numerous other NGOs whose dissidence is met with violence. The international community seems to have turned its attention elsewhere but for women, the cycle of violence in Taliban’s Afghanistan is unceasing and will likely cause long-term psychological damage to a population where 60 per cent of people are under the age of 25. Young but with nowhere to turn to for help or to call home. *